Incorrigible
by Kimi-f11
Summary: The irony of being an insurance adjuster when you can barely get car insurance is not lost on Kakashi Hatake. Unfortunately, Naruto Uzumaki appears to be the human embodiment of natural disaster, and despite Kakashi's bitter insistence at being left alone, it appears that the infamous Hatake Curse has struck once again. AU. Crossposted AO3.
1. Scarecrow

Kakashi allowed himself some pride in the fact he remained unfazed even in the deadliest of situations.

Such as now, face to face with the blonde wrecking ball (such a collection of mass destruction could never be called _human_ ) that had just almost certainly guaranteed that Kakashi's premiums would be through the roof.

"I am _so_ _sorry_."

Kakashi nodded and surveyed the damage. The front half of his car was well... gone.

They stood in the middle of an empty street, just three blocks from Kakashi's apartment. Snow was pressed into the pavement and piled on the sidewalks. The cold had turned bitter. He could feel the sting of the winter air on his nose and pulled up his scarf.

His old, beat up Toyota Corolla sat awkward and broken, half on the sidewalk. The other car, a large, squared, cotton candy pink Land Rover, looked for all the world like it hadn't hit a thing, save a small dent in the front right hand side. The man to whom the car belonged was a bouncing, blonde haired, blue eyed disaster with a bright orange parka.

"...I can't believe- Wait no. I can believe it. Sakura is going to kill me." Blondie suddenly switched into a horrendous falsetto "You're going to hit someone driving recklessly like that you idiot. Uhg. She _told_ me not to take the night shift."

Kakashi just watched, numb to it all as the blonde bounced with every word in the cold winter air. It was three in the morning. No one was even supposed to be out.

He needed a damn coffee.

"Anyways, you should give me your info, you know?" The man grinned.

Kakashi heaved a sigh, and adjusted his scarf a little more so that it wouldn't slip. His nose was going to freeze off at this rate. He wondered idly if he could get a rental for the next few weeks. Hopefully it would be an "office" type week and he could take the bus. He _hated_ the bus.

"Eh, hey, there, look, sorry I..." the blonde held out his phone.

"No need to apologize," Kakashi said with practiced ease, typing in his number and name, "Let me grab my insurance card-"

"Ah, no need, no need!" The man scrambled to get back his phone, texting rapidly. Kakashi felt his phone buzz in his back pocket.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki!" the man held his fist out with a winning grin. When Kakashi eyed proffered fist a bit oddly, Naruto hesitantly opened his hand. Sighing, Kakashi accepted the handshake.

"Kakashi. Hatake."

"Great. And don't you worry about a thing. This is my fault and I'm going to fix it. Tell you what. I'll call a tow, and get you home. And don't worry about repairs. I'll foot the bill."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure we're supposed to call the cops and then our insurance company."

Naruto paled noticeably at that, even in the sickly yellow street light, and leaned in.

"I would really, really, appreciate it if we didn't do that."

"What, not driving without insurance are we?" And Kakashi had to bite his tongue before he said anything more.

Naruto winced, reaching his hand up to the back of his head. "Ah, well, funny story about that actually…"

Kakashi sighed and turned towards his car to get get his insurance card.

"Wait, please!" A hand grabbed him by the arm, halting stopping him in the middle of the street.

Kakashi wasn't sure why this time he stopped. It was probably his weakness for people who liked the color orange too much. A weakness that had definitely bit him in the ass more than once.

"Look, I appreciate you wanting to take care of this, but-"

"I can do it! Look, just, let me call you a cab or a tow or something, but I promise, just let me take this into my mechanic and I'll have it taken care of. Then neither of us have to worry about insurance, yeah?"

Kakashi studied the blonde seriously. Big blue eyes stared up in earnest. This close he could see whisker like markings adorned the man's cheeks. He jerked back. He felt a bitter laugh bubbling up. So this is what his life had come to? Someone up there really hated him.

"Hey, wait-Hey! HEY!"

He tore away from the blonde, despite protest and stalked into the darkness of the winter night. He was quick to make himself disappear, leaving not a footprint for the other man to follow.

* * *

Kakashi wasn't a _coward_ per say. He simply had a sense of self preservation. So when he had seen the blonde up close, seen those markings, he had turned and hightailed it out of there because if there was one thing he had learned in his short miserable life, people who were marked were bad, bad news. And Naruto was marked like some ass backwards demon was hanging a neon sign over his head screaming "disaster, do not interact".

And Kakashi knew how to follow the signs.

The upside of being cursed, and also probably of working in the industry, was being so accustomed to misery that the pain and evil of the world merely seemed a passing footnote in his life. That, and you could spot people in similar predicaments a mile away so as to avoid them, lest the combined power of two people similarly marked cause some kind of...double curse?

Kakashi wasn't sure on how the whole algebra of curses and marks worked or what not (though he knew for sure if a parent was cursed, the child was too by being an extension of the parent), but even with one bad eye he could tell it probably did him no good to be hanging out with anyone like Naruto.

Purposefully casting the blonde from his mind, with perhaps more force than necessary, Kakashi prepared for bed with a scalding bath that promised to remove all worries from his mind.

By the time he laid his head down on crisp white pillows, he had pushed the blonde from his mind entirely, and thoughts of paperwork, public transit, and old women nagging him about his manners lulled him to sleep.

* * *

The office building Kakashi worked in belonged to several companies, one of which was possibly a bank. Kakashi had never cared enough to check. Grey carpet, grey desks, glass doors, and the building was just like any other Kakashi had worked in over the course of his his thirty six years on earth..

"Kakashi! Oh what a glorious day, don't you think?"

"Good morning Guy."

Kakashi ducked out of the way of the overly loud, overly vibrant man. Might Guy, dressed in a garish and unforgiving sickly green suit, tumbled, caught himself, and managed to throw his arm over Kakashi's shoulder anyways as Kakashi tried to make his way to his desk in peace. From the corner of his eye he saw Genma duck into the break room, which, understandable.

"You're surprisingly early today. Late night last night?"

Kakashi wanted to point out that the entire question was peculiar, but knew better by this point.

"You could say that."

Guy laughed and pounded him on the back.

When Kakashi managed to escape from Guy (which had not happened until Guy had gone through several retellings of his MMA tournament last night, invited Kakashi out for lunch three times, invited _himself_ to Kakashi's next coffee run, and had bemoaned Kakashi's complete lack of fiery spirit at least twice) he found himself in the break room.

No car meant bus.

Bus meant googling bus schedules at three in the morning.

Which mean getting up at six only to get get to the office half past nine.

It also meant he had passed by the intersection in which he had had his fateful encounter the night before. It had been empty. Snow untouched. He pushed it from his mind.

Frankly, Kakashi had run on less sleep and more problems before, but even he had his limits.

Genma was unsurprisingly already there, hair drab, toothpick dangling out of his mouth. Kakashi was almost amused.

"I think Guy's acting up because you finished that case yesterday. Puts you like, fifty for fifty I think."

"Fifty to fifty-one, actually, my lead."

"Really?"

"Sushi eating contest last month at the place by Taco Bell."

Genma made an "oh" and Kakashi finished pouring his coffee. Instead of leaving immediately, he paused.

Genma arched an eyebrow.

"So…" Kakashi said.

After some time, when it became apparent Kakashi was not skilled enough in the art of human conversation to keep going, Genma grinned.

"Yes, Kakashi?"

Kakashi spared some mild irritation at the tone, but continued "Where do you think the cheapest place to get a car would be around here?"

"Finally replacing that piece of junk? What is it, like, from 1995?"

Kakashi's mild irritation turned to a halfhearted glare. "Something like that. I'm afraid it's on it's last legs."

"Well, there's a storm supposedly coming in, like, sleet, no school, the whole nine yards. May want to get that new car sooner rather than later."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Storms meant property damage, and property damage meant Kakashi was going to be busy. He had just closed off a hectic week of travel because someone somewhere out there hated him, and assigned him three cases so far up north it was bordering on inhuman. He'd been on his way back from a long day of travel when…

He shook his head.

* * *

The work was already piling up. Kakashi actually shared his desk with another adjuster, but he seemed to be out, and it was a good thing too. His deskmate was rather disapproving of Kakashi's taste in literature and after taking a look at the list of new cases he'd just been assigned, he greatly needed the break.

He flipped through the small orange book, eyes just passing over without reading as he made a mental checklist of everything he was going to have to do and tried to sort out how he was going to handle transportation and his apparently stolen car.

Despite the trouble he was sure he was about to incur, he couldn't find it in himself to wholly regret having run the night before. Frankly, he would be surprised if staying wouldn't have been equally as bad.

Hatakes, after all, had very bad luck.

A shadow fell over his book, and Kakashi gave Genma his best, nonchalant, I'm obviously a busy man, stare.

"So...I don't know how to tell you this but," Genma jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "There's some kid in the parking lot who says he has your car."

Kakashi stared. His phone buzzed.

 _Hi there. This is naruto from yesterday. I think I'm outside your office building? I'm the guy who totalled your car, btw._

He grabbed his scarf and coat off the back of his chair.

It took him no time at all to jump down four flights of stairs, bolt out the front door, and collide straight into an unfortunately familiar blonde in an orange coat.

"Aaaah! Kakashi! You do work here. Thank goodness. I was worried for a minute or two there, didn't want to get the wrong Hatake, you know?"

"There are no other Hatakes."

Naruto threw him a seriously quizzical look but Kakashi was distracted by the bright, shiny, black Toyota sitting next to the pink Land Rover parked outside his building. The sun bounced off what was obviously a new, untested paintjob in the late afternoon snow.

"Heh. So. Um, about your car…"

Kakashi turned a disbelieving eye towards the blonde, whose hand had found its way into his hair in his nervous babbling.

"It was completely totalled. I took it to probably three mechanics and everyone said to give up. So I had to get you a new one. I wasn't really sure what you would want so... Toyota...Camry?"

Kakashi stared.

"I didn't think you were a prius kind of guy." Naruto shuffled around in the snow. By now Genma was standing in the doorway to the building looking way too amused.

Kakashi shakily put his hands in his pockets and tried to think of what he was going to do.

"Oh, um, right, so I got the paperwork and stuff out of your glove box. Not really sure what else you need me to do um. If you want we talk it out over ramen? There's a great place around the block from here by the Taco Bell."

Genma was turning red from repressed laughter.

"I'm really beginning to hate you," Kakashi said at long last.

Naruto turned red. "Excuse me?"

"I don't want your car-"

"He doesn't mean that," Genma broke in, "He just asked me today where he could get a new car, cheap."

Kakashi glared, and Genma quickly realized his life wasn't worth whatever amusement he could milk out of the situation, and retreated inside.

"I don't want your car."

"W-well too bad." Naruto dug around in his pockets and yanked out keys, before hurling them at Kakashi's face. Kakashi ducked with grace. "You're taking the damn car. And I'm not hearing anything about it."

The moment Kakashi opened his mouth to respond the blonde slammed his hands over his ears and started singing.

"TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR-"

Kakashi winced and stepped back. He watched as Naruto made it through two out of tune renditions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, one Row Row Row Your Boat, and a weird song about colors he'd never heard. Naruto cracked his eyes open and realized Kakashi was not saying anything.

Warily, Naruto lowered his hands, eyes accusing.

"Is that how you solve all your problems?" Kakashi asked.

"Did it work?"

"No."

Kakashi grabbed the other man's wrists before there could be a repeat performance, and Naruto made a disgruntled noise. Kakashi started. The mans left hand was fake, and now he wondered how that had managed to completely slip past his notice. Shaking off his surprise, Kakashi held held Naruto's hands out to the side of his head so he would be forced to hear as Kakashi returned his thoughtful gift.

"I do not want your car. Take it back."

"I can't. It was a gift."

"You regifted a car?"

"No! Not exactly. Look. I felt really bad about the whole thing yesterday-this morning. And this way you don't have to call your insurance company. Win-win right?"

"Ah, so that's what this is about." He released Naruto, who flapped his hands aghast.

"No! I mean yes! But I also felt bad, ya know?"

"Right. Well. It's not that simple. And besides. I'm an insurance adjuster. I can't very well condone what I highly suspect is insurance fraud. Or you driving."

Naruto gaped. "You're a what?"

"That's really what you took away from the conversation." Kakashi deadpanned.

"You don't look like you work for State Farm. If I jingle will you show up at my house?"

"I don't. They're on the sixth floor-what?"

Naruto looked a bit pink, but plowed ahead. "Nevermind that, I'll get you to my house some other way. You know what's a great way to get to people's houses though? A car. Which I'm giving you."

"Why would I go to your house?"

"That's really what you took away from that conversation?"

Naruto's shameless grin earned him a one eyed glare. It wasn't Kakashi's best effort.

Naruto deflated a bit. He bent down to grab the keys off the icy pavement. He dusted them off a bit and held them out. Then he spoke in a softer voice than Kakashi thought possible from him.

"Look. Yesterday was my fault. I'm sorry. I can tell you've been through a lot." He tapped his own right eye, a mirror of where Kakashi's left eye bore a horrible scar, "I've been through a bit myself." He lowered his hand so it was pointing to the whisker like markings. "Different kind of thing, I guess. But still. We've gotta look out for each other. I promise this car cost me nothing but probably my pride and dignity in the face of my friends. At least use it until you get a new one. And if you never want to see me again, totally cool."

Kakashi felt a bit like the world might be wobbling. Did they get earthquakes this far east?

A warm hand placed cold keys in his own, and with a winning smile and a blue eyed wink, Naruto was jogging towards his own car.

Kakashi cursed.


	2. Snow

Kakashi took the car. He cursed himself while he did so, but he took it. Genma smirked when he saw the keys in Kakashi's hand as they left for the day, and Guy exclaimed loudly about good fortune and the prime of their lives.

As usual, Genma traded a toothpick for a cigarette and headed off on foot to the bar down the street. Hidden Leaf something or the other. Also, as was their tradition, Guy loudly and openly invited Kakashi to join them. Kakashi declined.

"Our great and noble leader will be here tomorrow Kakashi. I hope you aren't late."

Kakashi "hmmed" and "mmed" and that seemed to be enough to convince Guy he was listening. When everyone was finally gone, and the setting sun dyed the pavement purple, he swung the keys momentarily between his fingers, sighed, and gave in.

It was better than the bus.

* * *

When snow hit up in their neck of the woods, it liked to play dirty. White, glistening, christmasland looking hills would be frozen solid with ice waiting to bruise and batter you. Clear blue skies and high yellow suns meant biting winds that burned your lungs. And a storm, well, this time instead of depositing two feet of fluffy white childhood, the recent rise in temperature for which most of the town had been grateful after weeks of below zero, made it look like they were about to pelted with inches of sloppy ice instead.

Dangerous, heavy ice.

And it was supposed to hit Sunday.

So naturally, on Thursday, Kakashi set to work preparing for the weeks ahead. He was going to need snow chains, if not now, then eventually. And he'd promised himself a new camera this season. Once the spring and hail hit he'd want it anyways. Christmas was only a few weeks away, he could buy himself something nice and call it an early present. He'd get gas, stock up on pretzels and instant coffee, and when the sleet inevitably brought down a tree branch on some unlucky sou'ls house, he'd be ready to drive.

At the very least he was glad he was not working auto anymore. Guy was going to be very, very busy in the coming week.

Kakashi had quietly removed his old car from his policy, and now had the issues of trying to figure out how he was going to handle his "gift". He wanted to strangle the person responsible for all this, but instead resigned himself to getting his new car registered and insured by the week's end.

Extra paperwork he really didn't need right now.

* * *

Blessing whatever was out there that wasn't actively after his soul, Kakashi spent his last free Sunday watching the world from his bedroom window. His one good eye, grey and steely like the clouds outside, stared back at him from the glass.

The storm was the worst on record, it lasted four days, and Kakashi, along with most of the town, lost power. When he finally was on the road after the worst of it had passed, he learned so had most of the state.

* * *

"...and then I came home to find this giant ass-uhg!" the woman threw her hands up. She was dressed in casual suit pants and a lab coat. Her blonde hair was thrown up in a messy, frazzled bun. "Look, I just got off the worst shift of my life. It's like everyone forgot how to drive this weekend."

Kakashi nodded in sincere sympathy. This was his eighth case today and he was sure there would be more to come as the week rolled by. Like all the others so far, this one existed in a suburban area surrounded by trees, presumable because some jerk city planner felt they were aesthetic. The sad, sagging yellow house was now the proud victim of the largest branch Kakashi had ever seen.

"Ms. Senju, I'd like to thank you for your time. Do you mind if I take a look at the damage?"

There was hardly a need. According to the woman, the tree that stood in the front yard of her home was planted there by her great grandfather, who had been a passionate ranger (and Kakashi suspected she meant park ranger) and while she hated the "damnable nuisance" it had been, she had promised her parents to look after it when they let her the house, and just maybe she should have cut it back before winter began, but she didn't know God was planning to throw a fucking blizzard at them, and her power was out so she really didn't appreciate this at all and the only reason she was at the hospital is their generator let her get access to piping hot hospital coffee.

And from where Kakashi was standing, the tree, plus sleet, mean the roof was going to need to be replaced. A total loss.

Nonetheless, thorough was in the job description. He'd broken out his ski mask for the biting cold, and with heavy gloves and boots packed full of heat pads he scrambled onto the roof via iced over ladder leaning against the west side.

"Don't kill yourself."

Sound advice, coming from a doctor.

Standing at the edge of the roof only confirmed what he thought. He grimaced. It would probably be awhile before anything in town could get fixed given most were still without power. Save Walmart and the Hospital. If there was one thing Kakashi had learned in his years making money off other's misfortunes, it was that Hospitals and Walmarts always had backup power. He suspected from the souls of the damned.

He was distracted then as a candy pink Land Rover rolled into the driveway at a much too reckless speed.

"Oi! Grandma! Sakura told me you might need a hand. My place still has power- what the fuck happened to your house?"

The car stopped and the blonde hopped out. He had squeezed a brown winter trench coat over his bright orange parka, and dark green snow pants were tucked into rugged brown boots.

"A tree fell on it, what the fuck do you think. Don't call me grandma."

Naruto grinned. There was no venom in Ms. Senju's words, and Kakashi decided staying on the roof was a great idea and thanked the heavens Naruto had apparently not noticed the black Camry parked on the side of the street.

"Eh. Who's that guy?" Naruto pointed to where Kakashi was pretending to seriously study the now mostly rubble remains of the roof.

"Pointing is rude. Brat."

Naruto squinted up at him, but Kakashi made no move to come down. He was glad for his hat today.

"Hey! Guy! I think the roof needs to be replaced!"

There really was no escaping his fate.

"I know," he called back, and climbed down.

Naruto squinted, then grinned. "Kakashi!"

"You know this guy?" Ms. Senju asked, crossing her arms.

Naruto froze, and if Kakashi weren't so not happy to see him he would have taken quite a bit of pleasure in milking the fact Naruto obviously hadn't shared his little "I totalled a stranger's car at 3AM on a Tuesday" story. As it were, he only took a small amount of amusement.

"Mr. Uzumaki helped me with a flat on Tuesday. A real life saver." Kakashi quirked a sinister smile at Naruto, who's blue eyes had gone saucer wide. He coughed to cover up his weird behavior and turned it into a sheepish grin.

Ms. Senju turned suspicious brown eyes on Naruto who shrugged and looked at the ground.

What a terrible liar, honestly.

"It would seem, however, that since then I haven't quite been able to get rid of him." Kakashi added breezily.

Naruto glared.

Ms. Senju grinned. "Oh he does that. Be real careful Mr. Hatake, he's like a puppy, feed him once and he'll follow you home."

"It's a good thing I didn't take him up on that ramen then."

Naruto turned red and Ms. Senju laughed, smacking Kakashi across the shoulder in what he was sure was meant to be good humor, but felt like she might be trying to kill him. She turned to Naruto.

"Give me a bit to grab my things. Your place got hot water?"

Naruto nodded.

"Oh thank God." And Ms. Senju stomped up the stairs and into her house.

Kakashi turned to find Naruto staring at him, mouth agape, an accusatory finger in his face. He noted the gloves this time, that hid the prosthetic.

"You _lied._ "

Kakashi blinked. "Yes."

"How can you lie like that? Y-you _liar._ "

Kakashi felt torn between amused and annoyed, and decided to settle on annoyed, but uncaring, like he might feel about a bird flying too close, or Guy challenging him to Rock, Paper, Scissors.

"If you'd rather," he drawled, "I could always tell her about how you-"

Naruto jumped at him, slamming a hand over his mouth. "Don't you _dare_."

Kakashi offered Naruto his best one eyed glare. In the past week he had been in physical contact with this idiot far more than he was comfortable with for someone he didn't know and had been actively trying to avoid.

Naruto seemed to realize that perhaps he was going over board, and stepped back, putting space between them.

"Heh. Sorry. I get carried away sometimes." He perked up, "Oh, do you want to grab dinner with me and Tsunade?"

"No."

"Why no~"

"I'm here on the clock. I'm going to finish up and head to my next case. And I am going to pray I never see you again."

Naruto stared, head titled to the side. He put his hands on his hips.

"Rude."

* * *

Kakashi came to the realization that things were going to get worse the way you drown, slower than you'd like, painfully, and soaking wet.

He knew this because he had almost drowned once. He was six. That was not the point.

Kakashi's entire life had been haunted by death and shadows he could only spot out of the corner of his eyes. Good fortune, and bright people with brilliant smiles, were the first signs of danger on the horizon. And Naruto showing up twice was reason enough for him to pack up all his things and head north. His case workload having doubled because of the storm, and the need for travel and shitty motels because of his lack of power, were a convenient and powerful excuse.

After a while, bad things stopped bothering him. People lost houses, pets, power. Children were cold, parents had no money to put them up and so ended up pawning them off on relatives while they waited for schools to open. Car wrecks, and fatalities, businesses, already on the brink, shutting their doors forever. The worst part was, for sure, the homeless shelters and soup kitchens, already strapped for money and time, now without power, or worse, with busted in windows, broken roofs, and more. Kakashi found himself bouncing from town to town, dealing with one frazzled person after another as the week wore on.

It wasn't as bad as when he worked auto. There were a lot more deaths in auto. Or when he very briefly tried his hand at social work, only to realize that Hatake luck and kids wouldn't mix. It was probably worse than when he worked independent catastrophe. Back when he was young, and needed far less sleep, he would travel the country in his car. When hurricanes or tornadoes hit, Kakashi and men like him would follow in their wake. Sometimes they were a godsend, but more often than not to people who lost everything one more man in a suit with a stack of papers was enough to push them over the edge.

One week stretched into two. His company sent more cases his way, and the Camry ran reliably, if a little slippery, on the roads once equipped with proper tire accessories.

Kakashi stopped at a small business, some kind of mom and pop hotel thing hidden in the trees northeast of the city. The damned trees. The amount of damage done by the storm had been exacerbated by the city's lax attitude about trimming back the trees. Probably a year overdue, many branches that should never have reached so insidiously over the homes of the residents came tumbling down under the weight of three days worth of sleet.

The hotel's power cables had frozen over, city men were already at work further down the road trying to get things up and running. Debris everywhere. Place was a mess. Kakashi had had to very strategically offroad to make it to the front door.

The owner stood outside with Kakashi, clearly distressed. Kakashi, just nodded as he mindlessly took a statement and eyed the surrounding chaos.

"All right, all right, thank you, sir-sir!"

The man paused mid panicked ramble and stared at Kakashi wide eyed.

"I'm going to need to survey the damage to get an estimate, do you mind if I walk the property or-"

"Of course, of course."

And that was how Kakashi managed to escape his past ten hours of almost non stop talk with panicked humans. He took his time. Walking around the buildings, the man had given him a master key for when he needed to get inside, but Kakashi needed the break. His boots crunched over deceptively white snow, and through thick layers of ice that poked insistently at his calves. Kakashi was really beginning to hate winter.

" _Are you a summer kind of guy?"_

 _Kakashi turned to regard his classmate coldly._

" _Nah." the black haired idiot grinned, and jabbed him with a bony elbow. "You strike me as more of a fall kind of person. Everything dying and decaying around you. Rain for days."_

" _What the hell are you going on about now?"_

Obito had died in the winter. Rin in the spring. His father also chose spring to take his life. His mother left in the fall. Hayate, though not as close a friend, had left them in the winter.

Kakashi's mind stayed there, in the past, with old conversations and long dead friends. Which is how he probably didn't notice the lake he'd accidentally wandered into until the ice gave way beneath him with a thunderous crack.

Hatake luck, he thought numbly.

And, when he lay in the hospital a few hours later fending off nurses, he decided that somehow, someway, this was Uzumaki's fault.

* * *

"You've got shit luck, you know that?" Genma had once said, leaning over his desk after Kakashi had returned to work with a severely dislocated shoulder. Kakashi had grinned up at him. And Yamato, still new to the job back then, had frozen, eyes darting between Genma and Kakashi like he thought that might start a fight.

But Genma had laughed, dropped a Thomas the Tank Engine "Get Well Soon, Son" card on his desk and went back to his side of the office.

The only person who incurred as many hospital bills as Kakashi was Guy, and that was because Guy was reckless (otherwise, really, there would be no need for hospital bills as Guy spent most of his job in auto shops).

He lay in the hospital for a day, resulting in countless jabs and needles from doctors, and enough money spent to insure a steady diet of ramen for the foreseeable future. He was suddenly and involuntarily grateful to the car sitting outside in the parking lot.

He hated hospitals, especially strange ones.

"No, there's no one," he said, after the third time a nurse had kindly asked if he needed them to contact someone.

Two weeks after the storm, and work was still going strong, and Kakashi had gotten back on his feet much faster than the doctor had said was advisable.

He was actually, finally heading home, and hopefully he'd have power. A hot bath seemed to be in order after the trying week he'd spent on the road.

Kakashi pulled into the parking lot of his complex, glad to see it was mostly shovelled. He grabbed his bags from the back of the car and headed towards his tiny, green painted door on the third floor. There was no elevator.

To top off a trying week, and the hospital bills he was sure were on their way, just outside the door to his apartment Kakashi found a small present, wrapped in orange.

It was mushed, like it had been sitting there a while, and the orange, glittery wrapping paper was soaked and caking off.

Kakashi picked it up and smiled despite himself.


	3. Curses

To say Naruto was annoyed would be putting it mildly. Annoyed was something he felt whenever Konohamaru would follow him home from school back in ninth grade. Annoyed was the three minute wait between the water boiling, and being able to eat, a cup of ramen. Annoyed was Ino Yamanaka coming over unannounced to steal Sakura's attention on one of the rare nights Naruto got off to spend with her.

Naruto was pissed. And it was that damn grey haired man's fault for not simply letting Naruto help him.

"Careful," Sakura told him, all cheeky, "I'm starting to think you like this one."

"I do like him!"

Naruto maybe told her that he had helped a man with a flat Tuesday. He neither confirmed nor denied further than that, and remained grateful that the man had seemingly lied on his behalf. _However_ he was still firmly against lying. It was just, in this one particular case, it maybe saved his ass.

Sakura stared blankly, then sighed. She bopped him on the head. "You're really something Naruto. Grab something to eat if you're coming over this Saturday. Sasuke should be back too."

"Really?" Naruto perked up at the thought of seeing his old friend.

"Really."

Sakura was dressed in scrubs, pink hair tied up in a frizzy pony tail. She was pale from too many days under hospital lights, and tired, but her smile was reflected in her eyes as she watched Naruto shuffle around between the shelves of the store.

The two old friends were walking and talking. Naruto made sure to grab his brand of ramen (Ichiban. None of that Top Ramen shit. He didn't care if Sakura couldn't tell the difference.) and toss it in the cart before checkout.

"And if you really want to help this guy," Sakura said without missing a beat. "I'm sure you'll think of something. You always do."

There was a time, long ago, when Sakura had not understood Naruto. The cost for that misunderstanding had been high and painful. When Naruto had stood in her doorway, in the pouring rain on a November evening, and told her in between shivers that Sasuke was cursed, but it was ok, that he was going to fix everything, and Sakura had slammed the door in his face finally done with his childishness.

Naruto stared at the candy in the checkout line longingly, trying to mentally count the current change in his wallet.

Sakura wordlessly dumped four Reese's and a Snickers into the cart.

* * *

Naruto walked home when he could. He did not particularly like the bus, and he could only borrow Sakura's car so often.

She never did find out about the dent in the front thanks to a little thing he liked to call a friend with benefits. The friend being Kiba, the benefit being free work on the car whenever he wanted.

The last two weeks had been utter chaos for Naruto and his friends- his _family_. The storm that swept in Sunday had taken down power for everyone. Except Naruto, who awoke Tuesday in his tiny apartment, bitched when the cable wasn't working and went about his day not realizing _everyone else was stuck_. It wasn't his fault.

Naruto's building was old. Built a hundred years ago old, and as such it seemed he was on a separate power grid from the rest of the town. Only when Naruto rolled up to the the Yamanaka Gardens to find Inoichi in a tizzy setting up a generator, did he realize the extent of the damage. After making sure his job was secure, and his children (of the green and photosynthesizing variety) were ok, had he got back in his car to go check on everyone else.

Which is how he A. ended up with a home full of mooching, bitching adults, and B. how he once more found himself face to face with Kakashi Hatake.

When he'd first met Kakashi he'd known immediately from the way the way the air moved around the man that he was like Sasuke.

Cursed, Sasuke always used to say.

Bullshit, Naruto always used to snap back.

Because Naruto knew a lot about curses. More than he cared to admit. His shoulder ached where it connected to the prosthetic and he grinned outwardly even as it twinged with every step.

It was one of those days.

It was late, almost everything was closed, but as Naruto passed by closed store windows, a thought occurred to him. Pulled by a force he couldn't quite understand, Naruto turned on his heel and headed back to work.

His gut hadn't led him wrong yet.

* * *

Kakashi couldn't say for sure why he kept the plant that had been delivered, carefully packaged, to his door. It was small, almost miniature, in a glass pot. It had layer of round, teardrop shaped leaves, stiff to the touch. Kakashi had never been able to keep a plant alive in his life so he really should have thrown it out. But he didn't. Perhaps he had been lonely. Perhaps it had been the note attached to the back.

 _Kakashi,_

 _Life is more fun when you aren't going it alone, yeah?_

 _Don't water it too much. He's pretty tough to kill (like me!)_

 _Naruto Uzumaki_

 _Ps: Genma told me where you live. You need better friends._

He shoved Naruto's note into the back of the pot and let it sit on the window sill by his bed. Watching him.

He was going to kill Genma. Kakashi didn't stay off facebook only to have someone giving out his street address to every passing blonde with a penchant for gift giving.

He had the terrible feeling he'd be seeing Naruto soon.

* * *

A week passed. Two weeks. Three weeks. Power gradually returned to all of Kakashi's neighbors. The sun rose and fell. Birds sang in the trees.

Kakashi almost ran over old lady Chiyo, twice, was late to work more often than not, fell off a roof (he was fine), and for sure ran over some small animal on the highway on his way into work. He also came down with a slight cold.

Overall, a fairly mundane week.

And if he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the blonde idiot who dropped into his life and left him a car, well. He wasn't going to complain. Really.

Christmas was fast approaching and his schedule wasn't getting clearer. As Guy made plans to take the eve and day of off, and Genma quietly arranged for a weekend in the mountains, it seemed one by one everyone in the office vanished into the winter air.

A more optimistic person might have called it Christmas spirit.

Their "great and noble leader", a grumpy old man named Danzo, who kept his blinds closed and attitude unpleasant, was the only one who seemed immune to the Christmas spot of fading.

Him, and Yamato.

Kakashi had started sharing his desk with Yamato when the younger man came to work for ROOT Insurance about six years ago. Kakashi was fresh off doing catastrophe work, and had settled for the salaried position in the hopes of getting more free time. Yamato was a few years his junior, and picked up the job after working construction for a few years. Danzo had been the one to pick him out, and had told, rather than asked, Kakashi to look out for him.

Kakashi might have had a soft spot for the stiff spined, by the book, squeaky clean man. Maybe. Probably had something to do with the fact neither of them would be going home for Christmas.

It was rare for both Kakashi and Yamato to be in the office at once. Kakashi was far more used to coming in, adjusting his chair, and defending the Buddha board from Genma's incessant need to draw obscenities.

"He'll never know," Genma said, "that's the point of a Buddha board man. You gotta let it go."

"It doesn't matter," Kakashi would say, swatting him away.

Now Yamato was playing with the the board idly, twirling the brush between his fingertips, and letting water drip down the board as he attempted a highly stylized "Y". Kakashi watched him, a mask he bought from the drug store earlier that day firmly in place.

"Are you that bored?"

Yamato's eyes flicked to him. They were dark eyes. Kakashi was silently pleased to note that the apprehension that once filled the young man at every look Kakashi sent his way (often because Yamato was waiting for some judgement that never came) was gone. If it weren't for the fact Kakashi didn't _have_ friends he might have counted Yamato among them.

"Genma left early this year, no?"

"It is Christmas week." Kakashi shrugged, and returned his attention to his novel. He was wrapped in a coat because apparently fewer workers meant less of a reason for Danzo to keep the heater running.

"'Tragedy doesn't take holidays' I remember someone telling me once."

Kakashi snorted. "No, but I'm sure the independent guys will pick up the slack on this one. Guy and Genma have been planning to get out this year for a long time. Genma worked the last three Christmases."

Yamato scowled. It was very unlike him. But Kakashi decided to let the man bask in whatever weird mood had come over him, and let his book carry him away for little while. The cover was orange, and that had never before bothered Kakashi, but he thought about _him_ before he could help it.

"You plan to work Christmas then?" Yamato asked at last.

"Danzo will come up with something to do for me I'm sure. Some people are still recovering from the storm."

"What if we go get drinks then?"

* * *

Naruto Uzumaki was the fucking master of Christmas. Santa had nothing on him. If there was a holiday he lived for, it was this one. Unfortunately, being an orphan had given him very few opportunities to celebrate it. It never stopped him from going all out with the decorations, however. And unlike every year prior, most of his friends had had their plans wildly derailed by the surprise storm. School was out, power was spotty if mostly returned, and Naruto was ready to bring Christmas spirit to every cold, colluded corner of the damn town.

It wouldn't be easy, but Sai and Tsunade were already bunking at his house. Ino's family was staying in town this year, and Naruto was sure that Shikamaru would declare it "too troublesome" to try and get away before the holiday was in full swing.

Naruto could not recall a time in his life when so many of his dearest people were going to be in town for the holidays. If he had known he would have prepared a lot more. As it was, his current checklist the week of Christmas went:

 _Buy amazing presents for all my friends_

 _Bake cookies_

 _Have awesome christmas day rager (make granny buy us booze)_

 _Binge christmas movies (_ _rudoloph the red nosed reindeer_ _)_

Really the only person he had left to check with was Sakura-

"What do you _mean_ you're working Christmas?"

Sakura offered him a fluttering smile. Honestly, these days the way she worked herself, Naruto was terrified a slight breeze might carry his dear friend away, right out her apartment window.

"I'm sorry Naruto, but you know, disease doesn't take a holiday and-"

"Sakura! You're not even a doctor yet, why can't they let the real doctors handle Christmas?"

"It's not just Christmas, Naruto, the hospital gets really busy during the new year."

Naruto stared down at the list in his hand. He had showed up at the apartment today for all the wrong reasons, it seemed.

"I'm really sorry Naruto. I know we were supposed to do Christmas this year, but with Sasuke gone again, and the storm, I need the cash, and-"

Naruto crushed her in a hug.

"Don't worry about a thing, Sakura."

* * *

Kakashi laughed, truly, genuinely laughed. Christmas Eve, and he and Yamato had managed to sneak away from work to that bar Genma loved, "The Hidden Leaf Lounge". Kakashi was a bit tipsy, he was man enough to admit, but nothing he couldn't handle.

Yamato…

Yamato bent over the bar, head resting on the wood surface. He spoke into the table like he thought Kakashi could hear him, and would occasionally gesture spastically. It was charming. It was odd. Though not as odd as the one occasion on which Kakashi bore witness to Guy getting plastered.

Yamato managed to push himself up just enough to narrow his dark eyes.

"You're laughing."

"Nonsense. I could never laugh at my favorite mentee."

Yamato looked confused. "Kakashi...you don't have a favorite anything…"

"Ma, that can't be true now can it?"

Yamato groaned.

Kakashi let his eye wander around the bar. Honestly he'd never been much for the bar scene. Too self conscious, probably. He adjusted the mask a bit. He always did at least appreciate the fact the flu season came with winter. Not that it mattered, no one paid them any mind.

Yamato slumped over a little more in his seat.

"Had enough there buddy?" Kakashi asked, half ready to go home himself. Though if Yamato was having a good time Kakashi didn't mind sticking around and sobering up. Someone needed to get the young man home so he could deal with his hangover in relative privacy tomorrow.

"Yamato?"

"Yamato?"

"Yamato!"

* * *

The hospital waiting room on Christmas Eve was exactly what Kakashi always thought it would look like. Louder than was necessary, crowded, and severely lacking in Christmas joy despite the plastic battery powered tree in the corner. A bunch of homemade yellow construction paper star ornaments hung in the branches, each with a child's name. There was sign on the wall, something about cancer, and bags of presents left under the branches that a lowly person in scrubs was sorting.

Everyone looked tired and like they'd rather be anywhere else. Kakashi, dressed still in his work slacks and surgical mask, after talking to a nurse for the third time, tucked his little orange book under his arm, and wound his way through a disarray of chairs to the ones that seemed the least crowded, over by a sad looking potted plant.

Yamato, had collapsed. He hadn't been breathing.

Kakashi took a deep breath.

In the ambulance on the way to the hospital the EMT had kept talking. For his sake, or Yamato's, Kakashi wasn't sure.

"You're a real lucky guy," the man had said to Yamato as he floated in and out of consciousness, "your friend here did everything right."

Everything right was some panicked, hasty, CPR and yelling at someone to call 911.

Kakashi sincerely doubted anyone would consider it lucky. He thought about leaving. It had been, after all, his own weakness, allowing Yamato to worm his way into a place in his heart, that had led them here.

But Yamato didn't have anyone to call either, and Kakashi had nowhere to be. So he waited.

It wasn't until he was a good twenty pages further in his book that Kakashi realized why, exactly, the entire corner by the potted plant was empty.

There was a loud grumbling, and someone shifted, kicking a chair further out of the row. Kakashi turned very slowly.

Sprawled out across four different chairs was Naruto. His orange parka sat folded under head head and he was dressed in green coveralls and dirty work boots. He seemed quite deeply asleep, in spite of the fact half his body was dipping towards the floor as the chairs were pushed further apart under his own weight.

If Kakashi were the kind given to panicking, he would have been internally screaming. As it happened he wasn't, and so, quite calmly, he turned to the next chapter in his book.

There was a scrape as Naruto moved just a little too quickly, and the chair supporting his lower body escaped.

Naruto crashed to the floor.

"Ow! Jesus-! Jesus Christ!" Naruto winced, rubbing his head where it had hit the floor and smiling awkwardly at the people around them, who turned to let him know just how little they appreciated the outburst, via icy glares and one ragged mother shushing.

Naruto scanned the room, eyes setting upon Kakashi.

He stared.

Kakashi pointedly read his book.

Naruto stood up. He leaned in a bit closer. Kakashi tried very hard to remember what the sentence he just read was even about.

He turned the page as he reached the end. He would not look. He would not give the blonde the satisfaction.

He would not look.

He wouldn't.

He let his eye glance over the top of the book just to see if Naruto was still being- shit.

Naruto grinned. "Now I know why I'm here, but what are you doing here this fine Christmas Eve...Mr. Hatake?"

Kakashi snorted. He couldn't help it. He didn't think Naruto had called someone "Mister" in his entire life.

"If you must know, I'm waiting on a friend."

Naruto made an understanding noise of approval. He turned and sat in the chair right next to Kakashi, putting his feet up on the back of the seat in front of them.

"Me too. Must be some friend."

To Kakashi's great and ever growing surprise, Naruto fell silent after that. He managed to get through three chapters without interruption. He was going to need a new book soon. He wondered if the sequel was out yet. He glanced over at Naruto, wondering if the other man had fallen asleep.

Naruto was the picture of fake relax if Kakashi ever saw one. He was slouched in his chair, but wound tightly, like at any moment he could pounce. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was too even, too controlled.

A baby started crying across the room and Naruto winced.

"...So," Kakashi started. Once more he found himself staring into the abyss of human interaction, unsure of how he should proceed to get what he wanted. What did he want?

Naruto cracked an eye open, and that foxy grin was back.

There were many strategies to conversation. Kakashi had mastered very few, despite extensive education. He opted for the most straightforward.

"I thought someone as annoying as you would have something better to do than wait around a hospital on Christmas?"

Naruto looked like he might have an aneurysm. "Wow. You _are_ rude."

Straightforward was not the way to go then. Time for a more indirect approach. Subtlety.

"I mean, um, what do you like...to read?"

"Is that what you meant?" Naruto asked. He sat up a little straighter but seemed a little more relaxed. He wasn't wearing gloves today, Kakashi noted. "If you must know, my best friend in the entire world has to work tonight, and there's no point in celebrating Christmas without her."

"Best friend, huh?"

"The greatest." Naruto drummed his good hand against the armrest. "Her fiance is gone right now. He's my other best friend."

It was nice to hear, somehow, that Naruto was still young enough to have best friends. Kakashi didn't think he'd ever heard a person over thirty-five refer to their friend as "best friend in the world".

"If you don't mind my asking, what happened that you're here?"

Kakashi sighed. He put down his book.

"I was out drinking with a friend. He got hurt." Kakashi wasn't sure how much medical history Yamato would appreciate being shared, but decided err on the side of none.

Someone walked up to them with a clipboard.

"Mr. Hatake, would you come with me?"

* * *

The short story was, Yamato was on meds. And was generally very good about it. His weird, slightly controlling nature was something Kakashi always assumed stemmed from a lifetime of mental issues that required careful monitoring. Regardless Yamato had mentioned once, that he _could_ drink, if he was careful.

Of course Kakashi hadn't remembered that. Like an idiot he hadn't even thought to ask when he Yamato went out drinking.

Hence the weird, terrifying seizure.

He was a fucking idiot.

"You don't have to stay," Yamato said, "I'm fine. They just want to keep me overnight and make sure it wasn't something more serious. Really I'm fine."

"I know," Kakashi said, but didn't move from his seat. He cracked open his book, and Yamato sighed, and settled back into his pillow.

"It was my fault."

...

"You're a really great guy Kakashi, you know that?"

"Hm."

Kakashi was pretty sure visiting hours were long over. He was also pretty sure the nurses were already run ragged. If he stayed quiet he could probably stay to take Yamato home in the morning. He'd need to head out and pick up his car.

Yamato snored softly. Kakashi smiled. He was going to have to make sure to keep Yamato at an arm's distance after this. It wouldn't do to have the young man dying because Kakashi got sentimental. But at least for this Christmas, he'd let things be.

There was a soft knock, and Naruto poked his head through the door.

"How did you get all the way up here?" Kakashi asked, not even surprised anymore.

"My friend works here. Is that your friend?"

"No I sitting here in the hospital rooms of sleeping strangers."

Naruto scowled. "Well you are pretty creepy-"

"Says the man who knows where I live."

Naruto had the decency to look embarrassed. Then suddenly very cheerful. "So you got my present? Never mind. I need your help."

"And why would I help you."

"You're going to be stuck here all Christmas too, right? Least you could do is hear me out."

Kakashi looked at his book. So close to the end.

He put it back into his coat pocket.

* * *

Kakashi and Naruto took the pink Land Rover. It had taken slightly more convincing ("Trust me, Kakashi, I'm the master of Christmas. This is for both our friends.") and the revelation that Naruto was actually _not_ supposed to be wandering the Hospital unsupervised ("Do they always let friends of the nurses have keys?" "Sh-she's not a nurse!") but Kakashi did finally find himself sitting in the passenger seat of the car that had essentially tried to kill him almost three and a half weeks prior.

They rode in silence. Kakashi was already mentally planning what he was going to do after this disaster of a Christmas to get his life back onto it's solitary track. Naruto kept the radio on a low volume. Jingle Bell Rock swung through the air.

Naruto seemed to know where he was going. He didn't pull up a map, anyways.

"I almost texted you, you know," Naruto said once.

"I didn't save your number," Kakashi lied.

They pulled up at around one in the morning to a very much closed home and gardening store. The place was a low, concrete block sticking out of the pavement, with a large greenhouse structure attached to the back. "Yamanaka Gardens" the unlit sign outside spelled.

"They look closed," Kakashi offered as Naruto put the car in park.

Naruto pulled aside his coat with a sly smile, tapping the upper left hand pocket of his green coveralls. "Good thing I work here. Besides, we're not going inside."

Naruto got out of the car, and Kakashi followed. They made their way across the parking lot to a canopy on the far side Kakashi hadn't noticed before. It was the kind they put up over pop up Christmas tree stands.. As they approached, the snow grew higher. Kakashi sighed and resigned himself to ruining a pair of work shoes. Naruto was costing him more money by the minute.

Under the canopy were a few christmas trees, as suspected, and a makeshift table Kakashi assumed was used for check out. Naruto brought out his phone and began poking among the trees. The sinking feeling in Kakashi's chest grew. He did not, and could not, be bothered to carry some monstrous tree into a hospital at this hour on this day. He didn't even do Christmas at home, the idea of going out of his way to do it now suddenly hit him as the ridiculous catastrophe it was sure to be. Kakashi was trying to find a way to articulate these feelings in a way that would force Naruto to also understand, when the blonde gave a triumphant "Aha!".

And sure enough, Naruto emerged from the trees.

It took Kakashi a full minute to decide whether or not it was a joke.

"Is that...a branch?"

Naruto looked scandalized.

"It's a Christmas tree!" Naruto held out for Kakashi's inspection in the dim phone light a "tree" that looked like it might have taken a fall from a real christmas tree if it weren't for the fact it was securely in a stand of its own. Needles rained down with every movement Naruto made, and it couldn't have been more than three feet long, thin as an umbrella handle, with branches and needles fraying so badly it was more stick than tree. "It's name is Winky."

"Winky," Kakashi repeated, as he took the tree from Naruto. It was lighter than his work computer.

"Yeah, hold it for a sec I'm gonna get the lights." Naruto disappeared.

Kakashi was too busy being amazed at the sad sight of the tree to fully process what Naruto was saying until Naruto came back carrying an armful of lights.

"I can't take the nice ones," Naruto told Kakashi by way of explanation once "Winky" was securely strapped into the backseat of the car. "Boss already gave me a tree this Christmas and we always get one or two late Christmas day stragglers."

Kakashi nodded.

"Let's stop by my house, if you don't mind. I have an idea."

* * *

Getting back into the hospital was slightly more complicated than getting out had been. Naruto had insisted they take some back entrance to which he had a key. Kakashi was almost certain that if some straggling nurse came upon them, Naruto with his manic grin and Kakashi with his mask and bad manners, they would almost certainly be spending Christmas in jail.

Instead they were fortunate in that the hospital was considerably quieter at two in the morning. Clutching Winky close, Kakashi followed as Naruto led him down a maze of hallways, seeming to know exactly when to stop and when to turn left so as to avoid a janitor or nurse.

"Sneak in here a lot, do you?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto shushed him.

They made it to Yamato's room, and set about putting things in place.

"Don't- you can't handle the tree like that, Kakashi, he's delicate."

Kakashi pointedly continued manhandling the tree into the new tree base.

"Ahg- give me that, Jesus you're going to kill him. On Christmas too."

With that Naruto pretty much forbade Kakashi from interfering at any point, taking the care of Winky and the lights into his own hands. Kakashi sidled on over to the nearest chair and cracked open his book, not the least bit sorry, while Naruto hummed carols under his breath. Yamato slept like the dead, he decided.

When Naruto was wholly satisfied with his work, he stepped back to survey properly, and nodded. "Hmm. Yeah. That'll work great."

Kakashi looked up. The tree wouldn't stand up straight and so Naruto had carefully leant it against the wall in the corner. It was decked out in tinsel taken from Naruto's apartment, and underneath, looking comically large, were stacks of gifts wrapped very poorly, mostly in orange, and occasionally Star Wars print, paper. Lights were strung about the ceiling, but Naruto had not plugged them in.

"You should try interior decorating," Kakashi said.

"Very funny." Naruto grabbed the seat next to him.

The hospital was oddly quiet, Kakashi thought, even if it was, he checked his phone, Christ, four in the morning.

"How did it happen?" Naruto asked,

"Ah, well, we were drinking-"

"No I mean-" Naruto waved a hand at Kakashi's entire being.

Kakashi did not answer.

Naruto slumped a bit in his chair. "You know, my mom, no my mom's mom's mom. She made a deal with an angry spirit once. You'd think that kind of thing wouldn't matter but-well. Turns out the sins of the parents or-whatever."

Kakashi turned to regard Naruto. The man was as he remembered. Too colorful, oversaturated, compared to his surroundings. It was jarring more than cheerful, but eye catching nonetheless. "Evil spirit, huh? I'd been wondering about that."

Naruto smiled weakly. "I met it once. After my parents died. I think it may have killed them."

Kakashi let that new information fill out the silence between them. He turned it over in his mind. He had known one other like Naruto in his entire life. Marked by a spirit that fed off the misery it created. She had not survived to be Naruto's age.

"What makes you say that?" Kakashi asked at long last.

Naruto seemed to think about that for a long time. His hands moved in his lap, prosthetic and flesh running around each other. "I suppose there's no way to really know. That's how these things work right? It just seems like you have really really bad luck to anyone else but-" he tapped the side of his head, "sometimes you just know. And they like to let you know they know you know. You know?"

Seemingly quite satisfied with this answer, Naruto sat back in his chair. Kakashi expected more questions. Or at the very least for Naruto to ask what exactly Kakashi's predicament was, as he was sure the blonde _knew_ something.

But when the silence stretched into minutes and Kakashi turned to check on the blonde, Naruto was already asleep.


	4. Christmas

Christmas day announced itself with carols blasting from the speakers outside every chain mass market store. Walmart, Denny's, and other similarly soulless locations hoping to milk some last minute revenue out of their disenfranchised employees kept their doors open. Kakashi did his best to ignore the affront to his ears, even as he waited in line for coffee at a faceless drive through. When he met the cashier's eyes, they shared a cool nod, and he tipped them extra for the silence. He left with four coffees (two for himself as he would need it) and a lot of sugar. He suspected Naruto would be a sugar bug.

Kakashi pulled up to the hospital just as visiting hours began. He had left the hospital at 6AM and walked the three miles to his car. He'd ordered as many donuts as he could reasonably carry to go with the coffee. He checked in at the front desk. Fortunately now that he was returning at a reasonable hour, he didn't need Naruto to sneak him in the back.

He stepped into Yamato's room to find the man awake and sitting up. Yamato turned to Kakashi. He seemed surprised. Kakashi would have been surprised too if he saw himself shuffling awkwardly tall in the doorway with so many Christmas colored boxes. Kakashi very pointedly did not do Christmas, after all.

"I thought you left?"

"I got donuts."

Yamato didn't appear to know what to do with that information, and continued to stare. His face always seemed to bit expressionless to those not used to it, but Kakashi thought he could read perplexion in the line of his frown. Which again, understandable.

"Did you do this?" Yamato gestured around at the lights and tree.

Kakashi realized for the first time Naruto was missing. An orange parka sat strung over the back of one of the chairs by Yamato's bed. The lights were now on, flashing in red and green, looking weak under hospital fluorescent. Kakashi hoped Naruto had not been found and kicked out. He shook his head.

"Not exactly."

Kakashi would have said more, but he heard an all too familiar voice coming down the hall.

"Almost there."

"Naruto this needs to stop."

Naruto still wore his green work coveralls, and was grinning like a madman. He had his hands over the eyes of a young woman with pink hair, pale skin, and scrubs. He was leading her from behind, careful to not let her bump into anything. Bemused nurses willingly ducked out of their way.

Kakashi stepped into the room, putting the donuts in Yamato's lap and ignoring his questioning look.

Naruto brought the woman to the room, careful to stay behind her. When she was standing fully in the doorway, he stopped.

"Ready?"

" _Naruto-"_

He lifted his hands.

The woman gasped. Green eyes went wide as she took in the room. Her gaze found the presents under the tree, and seemed to completely miss Yamato and Kakashi standing awkwardly in the corner with a tray full of coffee.

"Naruto…" she said. Her hands rose to her mouth. Her eyes watered. "Naruto!"

She spun around and tackled the blonde in a hug that the man was clearly not prepared for. He just barely kept them from falling.

"Naruto you idiot. I love you."

He wrapped his arms around her. "I know, Sakura."

And just as quickly she stepped back and rapped him on the head with her knuckles. He yelped. "And how many times do I have to tell you not to skulk around this hospital after hours! Honestly what is wrong with you! Dragging patients into it too."

She turned around and smiled sweetly while Naruto nursed his head wound.

"Hello. I am so sorry about this."

"Ah, no need. My friend and I had our Christmas plans unfortunately derailed. I believe Naruto was simply trying to help, ill conceived as it was." Kakashi found himself saying.

Naruto made a face at him from where the woman could not see him. She was looking at Kakashi now with a much more critical eye.

"My name is Sakura," she said, "Thanks for looking after my idiot."

"It was no trouble at all," Kakashi said.

That seemed to be enough for Sakura because she smiled. "Can I get one of those coffees then?"

* * *

The morning that followed was unlike any Kakashi had ever experienced, Christmas or otherwise. Kakashi liked to keep the number of people involved in his morning rituals to a minimum. Naruto had...other plans.

In the next hour he saw almost a dozen people come in and out of Yamato's room. A man with black hair pulled back in a high ponytail popped his head into the room, declared Naruto the most troublesome man alive, and grabbed a donut anyways. A long haired blonde brought flowers, practically draping herself over Sakura as she loudly talked about how "unglamorous" the life of a med student must be. Even Ms. Senju stepped in, mostly to tell Naruto he was going to be kicked out, only to not follow through on those threats when Naruto shoved a poorly wrapped gift at her.

Naruto had taken no time at all to dig into the boxes of donuts. Yamato, ever shy with new people, had simply held them out in silence. Naruto didn't seem to mind Yamato's complete inability to form words and did most of the talking.

"I'm Naruto, you must be Kakashi's special friend, right?"

Kakashi would have laughed if he weren't so horrified at the way Yamato's eyebrows shot up. As Yamato looked at him, question in his eyes, Kakashi resolved to do damage control later.

Sakura tried to engage in more civil conversation.

"You must be Kakashi right? He mentioned he helped you out with some car trouble."

Kakashi sighed. "Something like that."

And so the morning went. Sakura asked polite, well timed questions, which Kakashi answered with vague and unwarranted elusiveness, while Yamato got his first full dose of massive blonde idiot and unfortunately for the other man, Naruto seemed quite taken with him (and Naruto did, as Kakashi expected, dump all the sugar into his offered coffee).

"So you work with Kakashi? Do you like your job? What are you doing for Christmas? You think they'll let you out today?"

"I-yes. I'm supposed to get out. I-"

"Cool. Cool. Thanks for letting us have Christmas in you room by the way."

Sakura excused herself soon enough, hugging Naruto who had at some point attached himself to Yamato's side on the small, not at all meant for two bed. The people, friends Kakashi assumed, continued to stop by. Most stayed in the doorway, gave their greetings, and took presents as directed by Naruto. Many even left presents of their own.

"Damn," the pony tail man said while stealing a second donut, "I didn't know we had guests, I only brought something for you."

He chucked a box at Naruto, barely missing Yamato's head.

"You shouldn't have Shikamaru."

"Tell me about it. Anyways. Have to go soon. Mom wants us all home. I think Choji's family is coming over."

Naruto grabbed a box of donuts off the bed and shoved it at him. "For Choji."

Shikamaru took the box and offered Yamato an apologetic look. "Be careful there. He's troublesome. If you're smart you'll get out of here soon."

Another young man stopped by, with skin as pale as snow, and sat for a while, asking even more probing questions than Naruto. ("Where are you from? How much do you think you weigh? Did you meet Ino? Isn't she annoying? Where's your family?"). Yamato had long ago gone into what Kakashi recognized from the man's early days as "survival mode" nodding and responding as little as possible to outside stimulus. Neither Naruto nor the guest seemed to find it odd.

"You can't just ask where peoples' families are Sai. Some people don't have one for Christmas," the blonde girl cried.

"So?"

Naruto sighed.

Occasionally someone tried to talk to Kakashi. Ms. Senju tried to pick a fight about her coverage.

("You admitted to not cutting back the tree."

"I _trusted_ you. Hmph.")

The blonde girl fluttered some lashes and asked a few too many questions.

("So what does a guy like you do for a living, Mr. Hatake?"

"Crush the hopes and dreams of the disenfranchised."

Shikamaru laughed. "Are you a college admissions officer?"

"He works for State Farm," Naruto grumbled, "Don't be _rude,_ Kakashi.")

But overall they let him be, and by midmorning a horrified nurse was kicking them out quite firmly.

"Aw, Shizune, I'll clean up if you-"

"Out. Naruto."

Naruto stayed glued to Yamato's side while they checked out. Kakashi noted that all the nurses seemed at least cursorily aware of Naruto, and to several he offered what was left of the donuts and gifts. For all Naruto's exuberance however, Yamato did not pull away. If anything Yamato leaned closer to the other man, using him as a buffer against further conversation with nurses and strangers. Naruto had looped his arm with Yamato's and practically dragged the man from room to check out to exit and Yamato followed.

Kakashi thought, perhaps, even if things did not go well for himself, he could encourage this, whatever it was. Naruto seemed like a good friend and Yamato could use more of those.

Naruto seemed to realize that their time together was coming to an end, and stopped abruptly outside the hospital. He spun around to face Yamato, placing his hands firmly on his shoulders.

"Yamato."

"Uh. Yes."

"I'm sure you have plenty to do, it being Christmas and all-"

"Not particularly."

Naruto lit up. "In that case, come get an early lunch with me. We can finally go to that ramen place by your work. Kakashi?"

Kakashi looked between hopeful and tentative eyes, and sighed.

* * *

Naruto's Christmas was unusual in that is was great, and typical in that it was incredibly lonely.

Sakura had chosen to work the holidays instead of facing the fact Sasuke would not be coming home. Naruto suspected it was easier that way, for her to push aside her feelings of hurt at the fact he didn't even call. Pretend not to be hurt at the way Naruto would always get a message when Sasuke meant to be in town, and the fact that unlike her, Sasuke never _lied_ to Naruto.

Brothers in arms, Naruto told her, it isn't personal. And it really wasn't. After orchestrating the surprise hospital Christmas and getting summarily kicked out, Naruto couldn't help but be envious. Sakura might not see it that way, but her parents were a two hour drive away. Shikamaru and Choji's families would have dinner together, the Yamanaka's closed shop and threw a party. But not Naruto. Without Sasuke or Sai Naruto was alone. Tsunade had quite literally packed her stuff the day before in preparation for a long Christmas shift.

So ramen was...weirdly nice.

"The last time I was here on Christmas I was nineteen. My old high school teacher bought me ramen to celebrate my barely graduating." Naruto said, as the entered the old place. The walls were painted red and covered in posters. There was a bar, and a warm cheery air, as a young woman greeted them.

The place had grown a lot since he was a kid, but Teuchi still came out to seat them at a booth in the far corner, and remind Naruto he was their favorite customer. Kakashi and Yamato both sat through the proceedings in silence. It was cute, the two of them. They were both far more careful and polite with their presence than Naruto had ever been, easing out of the way of strangers and dutifully keeping their noses out of everyone else's business.

"Are they always open for Christmas?" Kakashi asked, once Teuchi left.

"They're almost never closed," Naruto said, "Unless Teuchi gets sick, but these days Ayame takes over more and more."

Kakashi hummed and opened the menu. His good eye drifted down the page. Kakashi had a scar that cut across his left eye. The eye in question was wierd, and white, and marbled, and did not track quite properly. It gave Kakashi an uncanny look, like a big mean pitbull Naruto once saw in the streets, clearly old and tired from fighting. It didn't help that even sitting down he was exceedingly tall. Regardless Naruto had yet to see the man do anything other than be mildly annoyed. Sometimes he even suspected the older man _liked_ being annoyed. Kakashi turned the page, nodding to himself, and Naruto decided that was a good thing.

The ramen came, and after a brief moment of silence, wherein Naruto relished his first bite of real ramen in weeks, he started up with trying to drag the two into casual conversation.

"So what do you normally do for Christmas?"

He directed the question at Kakashi but Yamato answered. "We normally work."

"Both of you? Together?"

"Ah, no, Kakashi and I work separately, but we normally both work the holidays. We'll probably have to catch up on what we missed tomorrow."

"I can't believe your boss makes you work Christmas."

"Oh, Danzo's not so bad…"

"Danzo is a tired, cruel, old man," Kakashi said, and Yamato winced.

"But it doesn't really matter. I mean. I don't really have anywhere to go for Christmas. I don't have family." Yamato seemed hurried to assure him.

Naruto watched Kakashi carefully, but after his outburst the man seemed satisfied, as if it was the only thing he'd intended to say the whole time. He turned to Yamato.

"That's ok. I normally only celebrate with a couple of friends. Sometimes my old foster brother and I get together but," Naruto shrugged. "You know how it is."

"You were in the system?" Yamato was great fun because though he was quiet, he physically seemed to rise and fall with his emotions, and Naruto internally cheered at the way Yamato was suddenly invested in the conversation.

"Yeah, hm. My parents died when I was very young, and neither had any family to go to. And my godfather...well it's complicated. I was in foster care for a bit when I was very young, but my godfather got custody. But he died when I was in high school, so you know. I ended back where I started I guess."

Yamato looked very serious, hands folded in front of him. "I see."

It seemed that would be all the sharing. And Naruto decided that was well enough. His only other friend from foster care was Sai, and that boy had a world full of issues. He dug into his ramen.

Kakashi appeared at least somewhat interested in everything that was going on, but turned back to his food almost as soon as Naruto did. He was still wearing his coat, and Naruto frowned.

Someone had told him once that people who didn't take of their coats were just waiting for an excuse to leave. He pondered this, and future plans for how to get around Kakashi's apparent need to be bundled from head to toe at all times.

"I don't remember them." Naruto jumped and looked up. Yamato was so quiet, and stared into his bowl of ramen instead of at Naruto. "My parents, I mean."

Naruto tried for his most winning smile. "Eh, I don't really remember mine either...I got into so much trouble though."

Yamato didn't talk for the rest of the meal. But it was ok. Naruto recounted all the times Iruka had tried to parent him instead. Talked about the Old Man, whose name he had forgotten long ago but who was Naruto's first memories of any kind of parent. He even slipped some Jiraiya stories in, though they were small and he did not say his name.

It was a nice but brief distraction. Kakashi refused to eat desert, but somehow managed to convince Yamato to foot Naruto's bill. They had stayed a little too long, Naruto was a little too loud. Neither seemed to mind. If anything they seemed as eager as Naruto to put off the inevitable.

Going home alone.

But eventually the night ended, and they bid each other farewell in the parking lot.

Naruto shouldn't have felt as bitter as he did. He had gotten to see everyone. His friends had turned out wonderfully, all for his and Sakura's sake, at the last minute. Tsunade would probably even spend the New Year with him.

But he still felt it.

When he got home, he opened the door to his apartment, kicked off his shoes, and let himself take a full minute to feel everything he had put off. He sank to the floor and just let himself feel sad. When he was done he opened his eyes.

A tall dark haired man sat on his couch, staring down at his hands.

"Sasuke," Naruto said.

Sasuke looked up.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Kakashi oddly enough did not spend his Christmas alone. This was not for lack of trying. He and Yamato rounded the corner of the shopping plaza with the Taco Bell and Ramen restaurant, having finally rid themselves of Naruto

Who seemed oddly sad today anyhow. Kakashi pushed the thought to the back of his head.

Ever the gentlemen despite Naruto's claims otherwise he walked Yamato to his car over by the office. Wouldn't do to have the man collapse again.

"Do you have dinner plans, Kakashi?" Yamato asked as they neared his car. The man knew Kakashi did not so it was a courtesy question, which always put Kakashi on guard.

"No."

"Well, I suppose I owe you one now."

Now Yamato did not owe Kakashi anything. Not at all. And Kakashi tried to point this out only to be shushed and told that dinner was on Yamato.

So yes. Dinner was slightly less lonely than was Kakashi's custom.

And the despite the gnawing guilt, Kakashi seemed to have lost his voice, and instead of saying no quietly allowed himself to be dragged to Yamato's place instead.


	5. Luck

When Kakashi returned to work the following week he thought he was seeing double. Guy stood over Yamato, gesturing wildly, a mini me right behind him. Yamato stared bleakly ahead, and his look of relief at seeing Kakashi in the office must have been too obvious because Guy whirled around.

"Kakashi! Please, come meet my young protege!"

Kakashi would have rather not, but Genma (the asshole) chose that moment to roll on by in a chair, forcing Kakashi to walk between the desks, towards Guy, or vault over him. Kakashi glared, a silent warning that Genma's betrayal would not be forgotten.

Genma shrugged.

He turned and trudged towards Guy.

"Kakashi Hatake, I'd like you meet our fine new hire, Rock Lee. Lee, this is my eternal rival. Our fierce competition is what keeps us sharp and in peak performance. You too should seek to acquire a competitor, who will keep you sharp and ready for action. Someone like Yamato here."

Guy slapped a hand across Yamato's shoulders and the man shook his head frantically.

"I see!" the young man whipped out a small legal pad and appeared to be _writing_ that nonsense. Kakashi sighed.

Standing next to each other, Lee and Guy could have been siblings. Black hair, the bushiest eyebrows possible on a human, and bulky, built, silhouettes that were better suited to wrestling than suits. The only difference was Lee's age and big round eyes.

Guy slung an arm across Kakashi's shoulders.

"Well, c'mon, introduce yourself!"

"Yo." Kakashi said, giving a slight wave.

Guy twitched. "Damn. You always do that. You don't have to be so cool all the time. Come on Lee! Your youth and energy will be your advantage! Today we hit the streets!"

"Yes, Sir!"

The two moved like a storm through the office and when they finally made it out the door, shouts fading down the hall, the silence left behind was practically audible. Genma heaved a great sigh and flung himself across the nearest desk.

" _Thank God._ "

Privately Kakashi agreed.

* * *

Sasuke Uchiha was one of those relationships that resisted simplification no matter what Naruto tried. It was the deadly combination of a childhood friendship with adult attachment issues, and with a person who refused to be anything less than equal in every space they occupied together.

Sasuke had, time and time again, refused Naruto's protection, Naruto's help, and Naruto's understanding, preferring to find all those things and more from people he felt could "handle" him instead of dragging his friends down with him.

In short, he was a self destructive shithead.

"Sakura's going to cry you know," Naruto said as he poured them both some tea. He had learned a long time ago that telling Sasuke that Sakura would feel guilty or that he was hurting her was essentially useless. He instead delivered the simple truth, knowing that no matter how many times this happened Sasuke would continue to drive nails into his relationship with the woman, and Sakura would continue to let him hurt her.

They were _both_ self destructive shitheads.

Sasuke didn't say anything. He looked like shit. He was wearing his army fatigues, and hadn't moved from the couch where Naruto had found him. He was too pale. Even for him. The dark circles and slight tremor in his hands gave it away more than anything.

Naruto kept the lights off, and pulled a chair up to the kitchen table. Sasuke stayed seated on the couch. He'd been there for hours. But Naruto didn't rush him to speak, simply stayed home, making food and cup ramen, and letting Sasuke freak out or whatever the fuck he was doing this time.

Naruto hoped it was what Sasuke wanted, but it was hard to tell when the man wasn't speaking.

Naruto drank his tea in the quiet and decided to flip through the junk mail piled on the table. It looked like it would be another day of silence.

"I'm getting medically discharged." Sasuke said, as Naruto tried to rip open a one time offer magazine subscription.

Naruto was very careful to not physically react. He guessed he wasn't doing so hot because Sasuke looked at him and frowned.

"That's…" Good. Great. Fucking amazing. If Naruto weren't so worried about the precarious state of his friend's mental health he would have danced.

Sasuke finally broke. His frown twisted in despair. "What am I going to do? This is...what am I supposed to do _now_?"

Sasuke brought his hands to his face, physically crumpling, and all at once Naruto's joy swept out of him. He felt like punching himself. He was the worst kind of friend.

In a second he was across the room and sitting next to Sasuke on the couch. He made a point of using his prosthetic to put an arm around the other man. "Look. Sasuke. I'm going to get you through this. You know I will. I was in your shoes three years ago, and it sucks but, it will be fine. You know me, I'm not leaving you to figure this out alone."

"I'm different from you," Sasuke said. He held a hand out in front of his face, turning it over in the dim light streaming in from blinded windows, stretching his fingers out and closing them back into a fist. He watched the muscles play under the skin, a ghost of something, some old pain he would not speak of, in his eyes. "It will only get worse for me."

"Oh fuck off asshole."

Sasuke jumped a little, turning to Naruto with a slight frown.

"You think this doesn't hurt every fucking day? That sometimes I don't wake up and feel like it should still be there?" Naruto rolled his eyes, clapping his good hand on his shoulder where the prosthetic met skin. "We'll get over it. We always do. But don't just dismiss me because I got both my eyes. I mean Jesus fuck Sasuke you've known me how long?"

For a minute Naruto thought he might have misread the situation, that Sasuke would stand and skulk off somewhere to be alone, as he'd always done when they were children.

But Sasuke scowled.

"Idiot."

"Heh. Drink your tea asshole. Then let's figure out what to do about Sakura."

* * *

Kakashi didn't mind driving. In fact he preferred it. It was quiet. The winter roads had charm when they weren't debris strewn.

When he was younger Kakashi could go weeks on the road. He'd cruise down cross country highways and pick up after hurricanes and tornadoes. He'd sleep in shitty motels on shitty beds. He remembered sometimes being so tired he'd just grab a coat and curl up in the backseat while he waited for his next big stop.

But at thirty six, four days on the road and he felt dead to the world. His back cringed at him, and his knees ached just enough to make him worry. He was too young to feel this old, he thought.

Avoiding Yamato had been much easier than Kakashi had thought it would be, and in some ways it was greatly disappointing. Kakashi had poured months into getting Yamato on his feet when he first showed up, and part of Kakashi liked to think that made him different. But Yamato seemed to accept Kakashi's distance as part of the job. There were no questions at the fact they hadn't even _spoken_ to each other since Christmas.

But that was good. That was the point.

And if Kakashi checked his work email a _little_ more obsessively than usual, well.

Kakashi frowned. When had he gotten this attached, anyways?

Kakashi sighed. He pulled over at a gas station just outside of town to fill up. He liked to stop there knowing he wouldn't see anyone he knew, and the squalid place was remarkably cheaper than the roadside stops.

As he pumped the gas, the idea of Guy and Lee running around town checking car wrecks and auto shops popped into his head. Lee was going to hang off Guy's every word, Kakashi could tell.

He chuckled. The world would probably be a better place if there were more Guys and Lees.

The nozzle clicked, and Kakashi got back into his car to finish the drive home.

* * *

Objectively, Kakashi knew that Naruto knew where he lived. It didn't stop him from the weird, surprised jerking move his head made involuntarily at the sight of the blonde bundled up on his doorstep. With a friend.

Naruto hadn't noticed him yet. He had half a mind to see if he could wait the blonde out, but as the sun sank lower in the sky he thought better of that plan. Kakashi managed to calm down enough to approach.

"Naruto."

Something in his voice must have tipped the blonde off, because Naruto's head whipped up and he looked scared for a fraction of a second, before he was barreling towards Kakashi.

Kakashi had a split second to decide whether or not to move, and his hesitation to do so earned him an armful of Naruto, who said in a hushed voice, "Can we talk?"

Kakashi looked about at the empty hallway. Naruto waved back at his friend, who lingered outside Kakashi's door, tall and bundled in a tan coat. There was something not quite right about it but Kakashi didn't have time to figure out what before Naruto was dragging him around the corner.

When they were safely out of sight of the other man, Naruto whirled around.

"I need a favor," Naruto whispered.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "A favor?"

"Think of it as payback for the car."

Kakashi tilted his head in a manner he had once been told was threatening. "I believe my not telling your pretty nurse friend you drove me off the road was payback for the car."

If Naruto looked scared before, he looked terrified now. Kakashi almost softened.

"Shit. _Shit._ " Naruto's hands combed through his hair as he began pacing. "Shit."

Kakashi leaned against the wall, and tried not to look as unsettled as he felt. He'd never seen Naruto panic. He didn't see Naruto often, granted, but he saw the other man just often enough to know this was abnormal behavior. This was getting to be too much. It was a slippery slope, he thought, letting Naruto have his way.

Naruto finally stopped, and closed his eyes. His breathing evened, and Kakashi recalled the time he'd spent in the waiting room. Naruto had made a similar face then, with even, controlled breathing. Must have been an exercise.

Naruto's eyes snapped open, and Kakashi jumped with the realization he'd been staring. Naruto did not notice, instead he put his hands on Kakashi's shoulders, a move Kakashi was beginning to recognize as meaning Naruto wanted to say something and needed you to look at him.

"Kakashi, I...whatever you want from me, if there's anything I can do, literally anything, I...I'm sorry let me try this again. My friend out there needs a place to sleep. Just for a couple nights. He won't bother you. He's very clean. And anything you want in return, just tell me. I'm-I'm begging you, at this point. I don't know where else I can put him."

Kakashi had to bite back a retort about the way Naruto described his friend like some pet instead of a fully grown and presumably functional human. Despite the childishness of the way he had asked, Naruto's face remained stoic, eyes strong.

And Kakashi considered it.

"Why can't he stay with you?"

Naruto flinched. "Not now. I, he will. Soon."

Kakashi nodded, as if the explanation made sense, when really nothing made sense about any of it.

He stayed silent a long time, but Naruto's gaze didn't waver.

He had very blue eyes.

"If I asked you to leave me alone and never talk to or see me again, would you?" Kakashi said slowly, each word considered.

Naruto froze. His hands dropped to his sides and he stepped back. Blonde bangs fell into his eyes. He seemed to be shaking, or maybe barely restraining himself. Kakashi's mind turned over everything he knew about the man in front of him. His relentless nature, the way he persisted even after numerous opportunities to leave Kakashi be. What made Kakashi so special? Why did Naruto choose him?

"Fine."

"What?"

"I said fine. If that's...if that's what you really want I can, I mean I _will_ leave you alone just please...take care of Sasuke first."

Kakashi felt like a stone might have settled in the bottom of his stomach but he nodded and did his best to talk around his suddenly wool lined throat.

"Deal."

This was exactly what he wanted, after all.

* * *

The next morning Kakashi answered a knock at his door.

"Lady Chiyo," Kakashi said, quirking his head to the side, and trying to peer down the hallway to see if there was some kind of trick waiting just outside his door. Chiyo was dressed in a heavy, black coat that swept down to the floor. Her hair was pulled back and her face was old and haggard with cold and bitterness.

She stood in the doorway of Kakashi's apartment and scowled. "Hatake."

The way she peered at him through wrinkled eyes, Kakashi knew he must be in trouble. "Can I help you?"

"I'm just stopping by to remind my favorite tenant about our policies regarding guests." Chiyo said.

Kakashi nodded and tried to look sage and like he cared. "Ah yes of course. It would truly be despicable of me to forget something like that wouldn't it. Please, remind me again, what was it I needed to do? I seem to recall a buddy system of some kind."

Chiyo's scowl deepened and she jabbed on knobby finger out at him. "Hatake I let you stay here because I know better than anyone that another landlord won't be able to keep up and while a lesser manager might let you get away with all sorts of unsavory things, I _saw_ that young man and I want him out."

Kakashi nodded. "Of course."

"I knew your father boy."

"Anything you say Lady Chiyo."

Seemingly satisfied with that answer, Chiyo nodded sharply and started down the hall.

She stopped at the corner. " _Tomorrow_ Hatake. I want him out."

When she was gone Kakashi closed the door and turned to regard the young man who had perched on one of his kitchen barstools to stare at the countertops in silence.

"You're going to be a lot of trouble, you know that?" he told the sullen man.

Sasuke stared at the tiled counter in silence.

Kakashi sighed. Despite the jokes simply bubbling up about Naruto treating his friends like stray animals, the list Naruto left behind on how to care for Sasuke was incredibly useful for exactly this reason. Kakashi tried hard not to think about the implications of him needing such a list.

 _This is Sasuke, my best friend. He needs a place to lay low for just a couple days._

 _He's very quiet. There's nothing wrong he just doesn't talk so don't worry he won't annoy you._ _He will forget to feed himself sometimes. Just leave fruit on the counter and make sure you buy tea. When he gets really hungry he'll fend for himself._ _He'll probably sit down somewhere and stay there for hours on end. DON'T WORRY. He does this. Just ignore it._ _He also will eat ramen._ _He won't shower unless you're out of the house. Dunno why._ _Keep the lights off if you can. It makes him feel better._

 _Essentially he's really low maintenance. Just tell him where stuff is and leave him alone. I should be by to pick him up in two days, max. If anything happens CALL ME._

Naruto's number was scrawled out in super unreadable handwriting. In fact the entire note was large, blocky, barely readable text, but Kakashi found himself incredibly grateful for it. He kept it in the inside front pocket of his coat.

What Naruto's note neglected to mention, however, was the almost visible black cloud lurking over the boys head. Like a shadow you see out of the corner of your eye, but permanent, sucking the life out of an already pale body. Kakashi had to be very careful to control himself the first time he saw it up close because a very large part of his person wanted to run.

Kakashi did not know what to do with young people, Naruto being a prime example. He especially didn't know what to do with _cursed_ young people. He himself had never been young. It made it hard to relate. Kakashi, Obito had always said, was an old man in a young man's body. Too serious. Too melancholy.

Sasuke did exactly as Naruto predicted, and once seated at Kakashi's kitchen counter, did not move. Kakashi made breakfast (the microwaved kind), showered, and slipped into work clothes, and every time he glanced towards the kitchen Sasuke was in the exact same position, hands folded under his chin studying the countertop.

"You can use the shower. There's food in the fridge," Kakashi said.

Sasuke still didn't move.

Kakashi figured he'd buy some fruit on the way home grabbed his keys from by the door.

* * *

Kakashi returned home that night with a shopping bag full of fruit to Sasuke having relocated himself to the window seat.

Kakashi did not own a couch. Or tv. Or table. Seating was rather limited so as to discourage frequent visitors. The window seat was more for it's storage than comfort. Nonetheless Sasuke gazed forlornly out at the winter covered parking lot. The shadow that followed the other man now settled around his shoulders, almost like a cloak.

Kakashi raised a hand to his bad eye, squinting. It did not go away. Sasuke turned to him, seeming to finally realize he was there.

"Yo," Kakashi said.

Sasuke said nothing.

Kakashi set the fruit on the counter and decided to carefully and quietly go about his own routine. He did not like having two curses under the same roof. He certainly did not like the unsettling quiet of the other man. He set about making his dinner and opened the fridge to look for something to drink.

Sasuke watched him. The man had changed from his winter coat into a loose black long sleeved shirt and old cargo pants. He still wore his boots and seemed satisfied to lurk and watch unmoving.

It would just be a day. Kakashi thought. Then both Sasuke and Naruto would be gone for good.

"What happened to your eye?"

Kakashi turned. Sasuke's face hadn't changed, but the shadow hanging over his shoulder had shifted slightly.

Kakashi had gotten used to the questions a very long time ago. They were annoying, and that never changed, but the audacity of some grown ups who would pretend to not be curious, or worse, would duck and avoid him, had definitely colored Kakashi's opinion of his fellow man. It had been for the best in the end. It had kept people away from him.

Kakashi smiled. "Oh, you mean this?"

He made a show of pointing at his scarred, misshapen eye. The shadow cowled around Sasuke clung tighter.

"Can you see with it?" Sasuke tried.

Smart boy. Kakashi paused to consider, not because he didn't know the answer, but because the tone with which Sasuke was asking. Perhaps the other man was not as young as he assumed.

Kakashi popped his dinner in the microwave.

"It was an accident. My friend and I were driving home too late from a party. Other guy was drinking. My friend took the brunt of the hit. I was lucky. Barely even lost my eye."

"Oh."

Kakashi wasn't sure if Sasuke was disappointed or not. Kakashi had always felt, personally, that the story was underwhelming.

"It's not a very unique way to die," Kakashi told him, "A hundred people at least will die that way today. Honestly, it's rather lame, when you think about it."

For a moment Sasuke looked angry, his eyes flashed, and the shadowy cloak of his own problems lifted from his shoulders.

"It doesn't matter how they died they're still dead."

"Yes. They are." And Kakashi was certain Sasuke had a very different "they" in mind. "And no. I can't see with it."

Sasuke nodded, and as he settled back into the window, Kakashi noted with surprise that the shadow hanging over his head did seem lighter.

What a morbid child.

* * *

Apparently whatever Kakashi had said yesterday had invited Sasuke to be weird and and verbal the next morning. Kakashi remained wary in his preparation of breakfast (fruit and oatmeal, because he wasn't sure Sasuke like microwaved sausage sandwiches). It did not seem to dissuade Sasuke.

"How do you know Naruto?" Sasuke asked quietly, over a bowl of apples.

"How do you know him?" Kakashi balanced a coffee in one hand, book in the other. If he wasn't interrupted he would finish the thing today.

"Why does he like you?"

"Does he now?" Sasuke scowled, and Kakashi pushed him with an easygoing smile. "I hadn't noticed."

Sasuke's infuriation was funny because it was the most expressive Kakashi had seen the man. If Yamato was hard to read, then Sasuke was a brick wall. A pissed off brick wall. And while the only emotion Kakashi had been able to drag out of him was fury, it still made his shadow lighter and if that wasn't indicative of some deep mental scarring then Kakashi went to school for nothing. Somehow Kakashi could not see Naruto's friendship with this man being a happy one. And, if Kakashi was being honest with himself, something he tried to avoid, he didn't like the idea of the blonde bending over backwards to please this incredibly depressing, very obviously cursed brat.

Naruto did, after all, tend to go to extremes.

"You're a piece of work," Sasuke said, stabbing an apple.

"So I'm told."

Sasuke glowered and chewed on an apple. Sasuke, Kakashi decided, was great fun cursed or not. He was almost sorry to know he would never see the man again.

"I don't see why Naruto keeps picking up people like you. You're just going to screw everything up." And Sasuke didn't say this with venom, or even anger. It was put out, and despondent, and Kakashi wondered if, from Sasuke's perspective, perhaps Kakashi had his own black cloud following him around. If so, Kakashi could almost understand Sasuke's aversion.

"Mah, Sasuke, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were jealous."

Sasuke choked on his apple.

* * *

The fun thing about curses was that everything Kakashi touched broke. Friends, parents, relationships, his favorite coffee mug.

The reason he'd been driving an old Toyota the last year and a half was that old Toyotas were reliable, and he managed to break so many cars that not only was his insurance ridiculous no matter where he went, but getting a new car was a foolhardy investment.

So of course the Camry broke down on the side of the road on his way home. And just after Danzo assigned him a batch of cases over the state border.

Kakashi sighed and kicked at the front tire of his car in rebellion against the gods who decided to do this to him. He stared down at the engine, hood popped and tried to piece together what went wrong. Kakashi had seen many a broken car in his life and yet still it was like his cars tried to break in new and creative ways every time.

He was about a minute away from picking up the phone and calling a tow or, heaven forbid, Guy, when a dreaded pink land rover rolled to a slow stop by him. Kakashi braced himself for the inevitable.

"Ah, Mr. Hatake, are you alright?"

He spun around. The girl he recognized as Sakura was leaning out the driver's side window slightly. She wore a red beanie cap and too thin burgundy corduroy coat. Her hair framed her pale face, and she had a nervous air about her. Her smile seemed watery.

"Ah, you're Naruto's friend."

Her brow twitched slightly, and the nervousness vanished into a frown.

"Sakura," she said.

"Hm, well, everything seems fine here, you can run on along home." He shooed her off with a wave of his hand and a smile.

Sakura looked at him, frown turning into a true scowl as she gripped the wheel and appeared ready to take off. Green eyes glared straight ahead with a steel that would certainly make for an excellent doctor someday, as her knuckles whitened on the wheel. Just as Kakashi thought she would storm off and leave him in the cold, her shoulders hunched. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Mr. Hatake. Get in the car."

"Hm. You know I'm really not supposed to get in the car with strangers-"

Sakura slammed the car into park and leapt out. She walked over to Kakashi's dead engine. She stood there, hands on her hip, chin tilted, and seemed to be making her own decisions about what was about to happen as she regarded his dead car.

At last she brought a hand to her brow, and Kakashi could see this girl, no woman (the lines of her face were too old for girl) was incredibly tired. She sighed and turned to Kakashi.

"Give me a few minutes. You can sit in the car."

* * *

Sakura Haruno was freakishly strong and quite intelligent. Kakashi's first and second mistakes were not realizing either of those things upon first meeting her. Sakura made him walk to gas station down the street for shitty coffee, and she gave this order while hooking his car up to the back of her own. Wanting to keep his life he'd agreed. At one point he worried the car might slip in the packed down snow, but Sakura seemed singularly capable of keeping his car still and Kakashi gained a whole new understanding of Naruto's open adoration for the woman.

"Is there a reason you have all this in your trunk?" Kakashi asked in regard to the mini emergency kit full of bungie cords and chains in the back of the Land Rover.

Sakura just looked at him with dead green eyes. "I'm friends with two idiots."

Having met the idiots in question, Kakashi agreed and decided that he might have to try being nicer to the woman.

Kakashi called a mechanic. Eventually Sakura ordered him into the car.

"Where to, Mr. Hatake?" she asked.

He plugged the address into his phone, and they started their ride in silence.

"Thank you," Kakashi said at long last.

Sakura smiled, long pale fingers tapping along the steering wheel. "Not me you need to thank."

Kakashi decided the best response to that was no response, and pulled out his book. Sakura smiled when she caught sight of it.

"You should take care of Naruto." She told him.

"I think he's grown enough to not need that," Kakashi said, flipping through his book, now thoroughly distracted.

"Oh not like, you know what I mean. He's always sticking his neck out for people, never watching out for himself. He's a no good self sacrificing idiot. Him and Sasuke both. And he _likes_ you." Sakura said.

"So you people keep telling me." And what that meant and how they meant it he would have loved to know.

Sakura looked at him curiously. "Us people, huh? Who else has been snitching? It wasn't Ino was it?"

Kakashi realized, belatedly, that the fact Naruto left Sasuke with him, a person who was neither friend nor family, instead of with someone like, say, his fiance Sakura, probably meant no one else was supposed to know Sasuke was back.

Kakashi wished he could believe they were planning a surprise welcome back but-

"They really are idiots," Sakura said.

To avoid any further incrimination Kakashi remained silent until they pulled into the mechanic.

Sakura gave no indication of knowing, but Kakashi decided the sooner Sasuke was out of his house the better.


	6. Baggage

From the beginnings of their relationship it had somehow always fallen to Naruto to convince Sasuke to change, and then to go back to Sakura, tail between his legs, to tell her he failed. Somehow, as his two best friends had grown into mature, capable adults, Naruto had been dragged in between them in a way that made extricating himself difficult.

If he were not there, then who would keep Sasuke fed, and beat his big dumb ego into going back to the woman who loved him? And who would be there to help Sakura through the hard times when Sasuke had to leave?

None of this made the process easier. No matter how many times it happened.

Sakura stood, shaking silently as she washed the dishes. They were in her apartment, Naruto seated at the kitchen table, trying to justify his own idiocy, even to himself, as he watched his closest friend come close to a breakdown.

"What do you mean he doesn't want to see me?" she asked, quiet and almost lost amidst the sound of running water.

Naruto stared at the mug of cocoa in his hands. "You know how he is, Sakura."

"It's not fair," she said, grabbing another plate. "Why do you always get to know while I wait around wondering if he'll come home? If he'll be able to come home."

Naruto tapped out a rhythm on the table with his left hand. "If it makes it any better, he's ashamed. He wants to do this right, you know."

"I told him I would wait for him," Sakura said. She turned off the sink and grabbed a rag from the counter next to her. She set to work drying the dishes.

Naruto hated this part. The part where he had to explain to Sakura why this week Sasuke was avoiding her. Made harder still by his promise to Sasuke not to hurt her, to protect her always.

"Why won't you just send him home to me?" Sakura asked. She turned so she could see him. "How is this ok with you? How can you keep doing this? Doesn't he know I'm here for him?"

Naruto had, for this, many words. Many feelings. Coming home after being deployed was a bit like being told your whole life you were a dog, then being dropped into a pen of cats and asked to blend in. It was stressful. It was trying.

And with Sasuke it was impossible. The man couldn't turn off the "soldier" if he tried. His guilt complex, his ego complex, and his feelings of failure surrounding his own discharge made Naruto wonder how the man functioned at all.

None of those words came out of course.

"It's got nothing to do with you," he said instead.

The plate in Sakura's hand fell into the sink with a loud crack. "It has everything to do with me!" She spun around, slamming her hands on the kitchen table. "I'm supposed to be his wife someday! Does he think I'm stupid? That I wouldn't know? You've been skulking around for days. I knew the minute he came back…"

Her voice trailed off, and she collapsed back to lean against the counter. She wiped at her eyes, and held her hands over her face, as if hiding. "God. I'm so stupid. I can't believe I thought he would marry me."

"He will marry you, Sakura!" Naruto said. He stood, but unsure how to comfort his friend he did not move.

It was the wrong thing to say.

She broke down, tears falling freely.

Naruto let her cry it out. When they were younger, before Sasuke had proposed, he'd held her. Something about the fact she and his best friend were now engaged had changed things. It felt almost like overstepping, to touch her uninvited like he used to.

But he would stand as long as she needed.

She had become a remarkably quiet crier over the years. Practice, Naruto's mind unhelpfully supplied.

When her shoulders stopped shaking, Naruto felt safe to go up to her. "Sakura-"

"Leave Naruto." Naruto froze. "We can't keep doing this anymore."

"You can't just tell me to leave, Sakura, I'm your friend. We're going to-"

"Naruto enough. This is my house. Leave. And tell Sasuke...tell Sasuke whatever you like."

Sakura walked out of the room.

Naruto could feel the panic welling up in his chest. Could feel the unforgiving pressure of having _failed_ so desperately. He grabbed his coat and slipped on his boots. As he left, he saw Sakura take a seat in the living room, phone in hand.

"Sasuke, I know you're going to hear this, pick up."

When he got far enough from her apartment that she would not see him from the window, he sat down and tried to remember how to breathe.

* * *

In the evening, when Kakashi got home from being rescued by Sakura, Sasuke sat in the dark of his living room, phone to his ear.

"I can't tell you that right now...no...no...I'm not at Naruto's. I'm not lying."

He stayed there for hours. Kakashi remained in his bedroom to lend the man some illusion of privacy, though he heard every word as Sasuke refused to give up his location to his caller. Kakashi tried not to feel too guilty. Turning over in bed, he let the soft murmurs of the phone call and the wind outside lull him to sleep.

* * *

In the morning, Sasuke was gone. Kakashi assumed it was due to whatever was said on his six hour phone call, but decided to ignore that in favor of picking up his car from the mechanic and getting back on the road. Two thousand dollars to replace parts he'd never heard of for a malfunction that seemed unlikely, and he could start putting distance between himself and his problems,.

He'd done his part and whatever weird thing was happening with Naruto's friends had nothing to do with him. The sooner he was gone, the better he would feel, so he spent as much of the next two weeks as he could on the road. He worked out of state from motels and rest stops, doing paperwork late into the night until his eyes dried up, and getting up at the crack of dawn to drive further away than the day before.

One of their commercial clients was dealing with damage from a storm that never made it as far as Kakashi's town, and there was always the occasional house emergency that needed addressing.

Guy sent a selfie to all their co-workers of him and Lee outside a five car pileup, but otherwise Kakashi's phone remained silent. He thought of calling Yamato to see if he was feeling better, but controlled himself at the last minute.

It was a typical workweek overall. Kakashi ran himself ragged trying to get everything done, and the Camry didn't break down again despite making a disturbing noise on the freeway when he hit about 60MPH.

One of his last stops of the day, in a list of dozens, was a rather freak house fire. The place was a quaint town, smaller than even Kakashi's. The neighborhood was nice enough, and the client lived on the edge of it. The last house in a row. Or he had been. Now a charred rubble heap sat on the lot, and a dark blue minivan was running in the driveway. Kakashi pulled up to the burnt our remains, and stepped out of his vehicle, and the owner of the minivan did the same.

It went well enough. Kakashi asked the usual questions and provided the usual paperwork.

"Mr. Dokku, I need to get a statement if you don't mind. Do you mind being recorded?"

The heavyset homeowner nodded. "Um. Yes. I mean fine."

"All right can you tell me everything you were doing leading up to the fire? Notice anything odd?"

Dokku nodded again. "I um, well I got home from school late. I had to pick up all the kids so I ended up in a bit of traffic and when I got here the house...and my wife…"

The man started breathing hard. Kakashi always felt worse when it happened like this. "Mr. Dokku, please, take your time."

It was truly a tragedy. A schoolteacher and his five children (all fosters as far as Kakashi could discern) were facing potentially having to relocate. A house fire, apparently. One of the silent and deadly types. It sent the man's wife to the hospital and Kakashi was sure the last thing he wanted was to talk to the insurance company.

"I take it it's alright is I have a look around?" Kakashi asked. He'd brought his new camera. A compact little digital thing, which he pulled out of his bag.

Dokku nodded.

So as five kids of varying ages and background clung around the gentlemen's legs, Kakashi went to look at the charred interior of the house.

This case was going to be hard. Kakashi had talked already to the firefighters and cops. Arson had been suspected at first, but apparently ruled out. Still, if anything came up, Kakashi highly suspected it would mean hashing things out with Danzo. But looking at the number of heads standing out on the soggy, cold lawn, and recalling the plan he'd read in detail that morning over a hotel breakfast of powdered eggs and sausage pucks he was not feeling good about that option at all.

The house was, predictably, a nearly hollow disaster. The charred remains of a couch and a TV set, the old kind with a square back, as well as a kitchen. Kakashi wasn't fool enough to try the stairs.

"They told me not to touch anything. I had to grab some essentials but...everything's here." Mr. Dokku was standing in the doorway, wringing his hands. He shooed the kids back onto the lawn.

"That's not the problem, exactly," Kakashi said.

Dokku's face fell. "There's a problem then."

Kakashi went into his inside breast pocket to pull out the plan, so he could go over in detail with Dokku what he thought this was going to cost him. He felt the ragged edges of Naruto's note, jammed into the corner and paused.

"Ah, Mr. Dokku, let's go sit by the car and see what we can do for you."

There was a long list of things that could make it so your insurance didn't cover the damages to your property. Arson was a good one, if the insurance company didn't have "irrefutable" proof the owner wasn't the responsible party. Typically though it was lack of "code" or "workmanship". Kakashi denied claims constantly from people who had been careless. People who didn't cut back their trees, who didn't change the batteries in their smoke detectors, who let a small thing grow until it took down a wall in their house. He received many an angry email for it.

Dokku was none of those things. If anything the man was overly meticulous with his record keeping, and he showed Kakashi the receipts to prove it.

"You will have to relocate," Kakashi said quietly as Dokku and he poured over the policy papers in the back of the man's minivan. "Your policy covers the original cost of the home."

"But we could rebuild, couldn't we? How long would that take?"

"Honestly, Mr. Dokku. These are things best discussed with your agent and your wife. I'm just here to tell them how much to expect in costs. But your plan didn't cover rebuilding. Not after a loss like this."

Dokku looked pale, but nodded. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Keep everything. Record your costs over the next few days. Call your agent."

Kakashi watched the kids out of the corner of his eyes. They huddled on the sidewalk, whispering.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Dokku."

The words, of course, were hollow and practiced, but as Kakashi turned to leave the family to their grieving, he reached for his pocket and found the note left there, reassuring in its concrete existence.

* * *

Without Sasuke or Sakura there to distract him, Naruto's day's became shockingly dull. Sasuke, despite his promise to Naruto that he wouldn't, fled. And that wouldn't have been so bad except that Sasuke was going _blind._

Naruto showed up on Kakashi's doorstep to find both the older man and his friend gone. He had for a moment considered texting Kakashi, but given his promise, had decided to quietly find and message Yamato on Facebook. A work trip, it turned out. Which meant Kakashi would not know anyways.

Sasuke had a genetic disease, hereditary. Naruto had known it was coming. Sasuke had too. They had prepared for it. They had plans upon plans for everything from faking it so he could continue his military service, to expensive doctors out on the coast.

They had never planned to tell Sakura.

But Sakura wasn't stupid. And Naruto wasn't a liar. She would find out soon he had no doubt. When she kicked Naruto out she did so thoroughly. Naruto had gone back to her door for weeks, knocking, leaving gifts, anything for her forgiveness. She never opened up, and Naruto forced himself to walk or use the bus.

January was moving too fast.

His mornings became lonely without Sai or Tsunade or even Sasuke to fill the silence. He gulped down cup ramen and was out the door before the sun.

Naruto worked most days at Yamanaka Gardens. They were far too overworked and underpaid to afford to hire him full time, but Naruto lived for the garden and greenhouse. Without the noise of his friends to distract him he wound up over at the garden to open up at seven and would man the register until Ino basically kicked him out the door.

Today was one such day. After jiggling the key just right and opening the greenhouse, Naruto threw himself into his work. Checking soil pH, hauling bags of fertilizer, and double checking that the sprinklers hadn't malfunctioned while he was gone. He was knee deep in the flower side of the greenhouse by nine.

The Yamanaka Gardens were three separate things: The outdoor garden, which Naruto dutifully shoveled and, in summer, would gleefully maintain; the indoor supply and flower shop, which is where he found himself most of the time despite his personal preference; and the greenhouse, which was truly Naruto's pride and joy.

Of course, the Yamanaka's were naturally all about the flowers. It was a family business dating back generations, starting with the very first Yamanaka to help settle the area. They owned five stores across the state. As was his duty, Naruto saw to the care and maintenance of said blooms. Some, especially for this year the roses, were delicate creatures that he had to sweet talk into behaving and ply with the most carefully maintained soil and nutrients. Others were sturdier. Naruto was partial to the marigolds, and he told them such when he felt the roses would not overhear.

But Naruto's true heart was with the vegetables. When he started working at Yamanaka's after he got discharged from the military, Inoichi Yamanaka had agreed to lend Naruto spots in the garden and greenhouse. At first Naruto had been annoyed. The pitying look from the older Yamanaka at what was left of his arm had almost been enough to make him refuse the job altogether, but Sakura had seen his face, and jumped in to tell Yamanaka of course, Naruto would love to.

In the end it had been for the best. Even back before he had been properly fitted for the prosthetic Naruto had been able to haul around a lot more yard equipment and bags of mulch than any of the other employees, much less Ino who normally ran the place. That, and he got to grow anything he liked.

In the last three years Naruto's small plot of vegetables had even been enough to sell off at the farmer's markets. It wasn't _great_ but it was living. More so than he had been before.

Today he tried his best to get his tomatoes behaving. They looked adequate, a little too green, perhaps than they should have been, winding around the wire he'd set up for them. He paid extra attention to his cherry tomatoes.

"Something wrong?" he asked them, "It's Sasuke isn't it? Look guys, there's other people in the world who like tomatoes so you can't get hung up on this, ok?"

Naruto thought they perked up a bit at that.

"I like tomatoes, Granny likes tomatoes. I'm sure Iruka wouldn't say no to a fresh batch either." Naruto sighed and reached out, hovering a hand just over the plant. "Don't be gloomy now."

The tomatoes seemed to accept his words with some amount of resignation, and satisfied that the rest of his plot was in order, Naruto picked up and headed back to the main building to open the front door and man the register.

* * *

Dokku would be getting a lot of bills in the future. Kakashi tried not to think too hard about it as he filed away the paperwork. Hopefully someone he _knew_ was the agent and maybe he-

Maybe he would do nothing at all. Dokku's luck probably didn't need Kakashi sticking his nose in it. Maybe.

Kakashi had taken to running a thumb over the crease of the notepaper now tucked in his front pocket. It was the motion, he told himself, that soothed him.

In the two weeks he'd been gone he'd received nothing. No email from Yamato asking about a case, no texts from Naruto. And really those were the only two who would be talking to him. At least the only two living.

January would be ending sooner than he would have liked, and the chaos of Christmas had distracted him from his usual routine and duty. He resolved to get back to it as soon as he got off work. He had an old friend to visit, after all.

* * *

Between eating and sleeping Naruto also took a night shift as a security guard in an old office building. He traded his green coveralls for a blue uniform and a flashlight, and sat at a desk pretending to care for a few hours until someone came in to let him off. He hated it because there was nothing to do but think, on a job like that, and Naruto could have really used any kind of distraction.

At first he took to meditating. But those thoughts quickly turned to Sasuke, and where was he and was he hurt?

And when he shook those thoughts off they were replaced by the look on Sakura's face last time he saw her.

Or the conflict on Sai's face as he opened Sakura's door to find Naruto on the doorstep, and had to tell him in a hushed voice Sakura did _not_ want to see him.

Naruto felt sick.

So he found a distraction.

Naruto's godfather had been a writer. A terrible, wonderful, funny writer. When he died, he left behind three unfinished manuscripts and reams of notepaper full of long, loopy handwriting. As a child, Naruto had believed them to be complete trash. At sixteen, it hurt too much to even look at the stuff.

Now Naruto sat behind a desk, five notebooks in hand, and soaked up every word. Every stupid, terrible word.

* * *

It turned out Jiraiya hadn't been half as insane as he pretended. Two weeks had been enough time for Naruto to uncover the gold mine that was Jiraiya's first ever book. Unpublished, and really even Naruto could tell, _unpublishable,_ he loved it.

When he finished shoveling the sidewalk by Yamanaka's he went inside and curled up by the register with it, reading and rereading cliche after clunky dialogue after page long paragraph.

"Man Naruto," Ino said, when she came in to find him reading. "Are you ok?"

"Of course, Ino, why wouldn't I be?"

The graceful blonde girl stood in the doorway. Never one to let weather stop her from fashion, her too short skirt and bright top were not the least bit appropriate for gardening or snow. Her face flickered between that awful look of pity she and her father often exchanged when they thought Naruto could not see, and a hesitancy he was not used to seeing there.

"It's...nothing."

* * *

The first week or two Naruto had been desperate, banging on doors, calling phones. He ignored Ino's look of pity whenever she came in to relieve him.

Naruto didn't hate the Yamanakas, but they had a habit of feeling bad for him that grated on his last nerve.

So when Ino walked in with a huge grin on her face one morning while Naruto hung over the cash register, his gut told him to flee and he shoved the old notepad he had been perusing into his back pocket. Jiraiya's future books would have to wait.

"Naruto!" Ino cried, "We have a customer."

Trailing in behind her came a lovely young woman with lavender eyes and deep, black hair.

"You don't have to shout at me, Ino." Naruto offered the new woman a winning grin. "Hello there, how can I help you?"

She turned red and ducked her head. "H-h-hello. Do you have anything yellow?"

* * *

Kakashi did not find a break in his work until the end of January was staring him in the face. True to his word, Naruto did not text him once, and Kakashi let work blissfully distract him from an empty inbox, only slightly curious as to what became of Sasuke.

But finally, at last, he woke up late on a Saturday in his very own bed, sun streaming in the window deceptively warm and bright. Kakashi lifted himself from white covers gingerly. On the shelf, Kakashi's plant stared down, judging him.

"Hush now," he said, "I'm moving."

He went through the motions of the day in the hollow meditative state he had acquired back in high school after his father died and he moved out on his own. He did not taste his breakfast or coffee. He didn't feel the cold or the scratch of his turtleneck. He checked his phone, and deleted the notifications without checking.

By late afternoon he sat in his car, driving south.

He stopped by the grocery store and picked up a bouquet of flowers. He settled for the only white ones he could find (looked like carnations). He removed the pink ribbons and balloon hearts put in place by a some manager pushing Valentine's Day just a little bit too early, and continued his journey.

He stopped by his car to fumble with his key, and managed to unlock it one handed when he saw a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye.

* * *

Naruto didn't sleep between getting off the night job and heading to Yamanaka's. He meant to, but sleep the last couple weeks had been too difficult anyways. He spent most nights curled up with Jiraiya's old work.

Instead he went straight to the garden only to be immediately kicked out.

"You look like hell, Uzumaki! Go home!" Ino tried to slam the door in his.

"Ino, please, I have to check on the tomatoes-"

" _I'll_ check your damn tomatoes. You. Uhg! I told Sakura she was being stupid, but you know what? You're an idiot too. Go home and sort yourself out and don't come back till you sleep."

Naruto gave up, and the door slammed.

At first he wandered aimlessly, preferring to go on foot than try and catch the bus again. He killed hours just trudging towards Main Street in the melting snow.

He decided to go get groceries at the last minute because at the very least he was going to need more ramen.

He did not expect to see Kakashi Hatake.


	7. Flowers

It was cold, and even the sunlight felt grey and washed out as morning crept into noon. The parking lot wasn't large, but there was still no reason for Naruto to have gotten as close to Kakashi's car as he had without either of them noticing, and Kakashi would scold himself for that later. There was no reason for Kakashi to stop what he was doing either, but he did. Kakashi's resolve started to fade around the edges a bit as his time to make a decision dwindled. Naruto looked half way to saying something, his arm held up, his mouth open.

But he didn't. Naruto did not look good. He looked tired. His hair was covered in a skull clinging green hat that hid his lively blonde hair. His eyes looked sunken. his face a bit pale, and he didn't smile.

Kakashi looked between his car, his keys, and his flowers. He felt a sinking sensation of guilt.

"Those are shitty flowers, you know," Naruto said, dropping his hand to rub at tired eyes, and making as if to keep on walking.

Kakashi didn't let him get far. "Now who's rude."

Naruto twitched. "Ah, sorry, sorry. I work with a lot of flowers...I just..."

Kakashi turned over the white wilting flowers in his hand and considered them. "So where would I get non-shitty flowers, then?"

Naruto stopped walking, but seemed off balance, like an unseen forced pulled him towards the grocery store. Or maybe just away from Kakashi. "I...I mean anywhere really. The grocery store's aren't actually bad. We sell them stuff sometimes it's just...carnations are pretty cheap unless you're going to someone's third grade musical?"

Naruto looked everywhere but Kakashi.

"I'm sorry about Sasuke."

Naruto tensed up. For the first time he smiled. It felt forced. "Don't worry about it it's really not, um, he's just like this, you know? You weren't his babysitter."

That did nothing to alleviate Kakashi's guilt. "Then tell Sakura I'm sorry too."

The fake smile dropped. Naruto looked away. "Yeah. Sure."

So that was the problem. The young med student and Naruto were close and honestly with Sasuke's personality it was a recipe for disaster. Kakashi wondered if this entire thing was a common occurrence or was the vanishing act-

"Are they for anyone?"

Kakashi snapped out of his thoughts. "Hm?" He looked at his grocery store flowers in practiced disinterest. "Oh, they're for an old friend. I missed his birthday. Apology flowers, in a sense."

Naruto smiled. Small, but real, and Kakashi felt satisfied at least by that.

"That's nice of you."

"Mhmm. You've caught me. My biggest secret." Kakashi told him, "I'm a big, sentimental, old man. I feed pigeons when no one's looking."

"Well," Naruto said, looking him up and down. "Maybe not that old, yeah?"

Kakashi felt innately pleased by that comment, before his better senses took a hold of him and reminded him that was probably a terrible rabbit hole to go down.

Naruto ducked his head, but he was still smiling and Kakashi counted that as a victory. "Alright, sorry. Didn't mean to run into you. See you never, probably, yeah?"

Kakashi's brain halted, only to sour at Naruto's words.

"It's not you, it's just." Kakashi gestured to his own person, though he wasn't sure what he was pointing out. Or to whom the justification mattered.

"Right." Naruto nodded, turned on his heel, and jogged towards the grocery store, leaving Kakashi with some shitty flowers and a growing headache.

* * *

The cemetery sat out south of town. It was a low lying, flat thing, and walking from one end to the other was easily a thirty minute trek. High gates that were never locked aimed to intimidate, and low lying flat grave markers peppered the snowy plains like a game board. It wasn't the best kept place, and possibly hundreds had been laid to rest there. It was cheap, it was community run, and it was overflowing, a problem Kakashi was only aware of as it's most frequent visitor.

Kakashi was a well known presence, and the old lady who kept the records only waved to him from the tiny office at the gate when he walked by.

He had once asked her offhandedly. "Who's your favorite customer?"

She sent him a scathing look and pointed a knobby finger at the west side of the cemetery. "Them. They don't talk."

Somehow it was even colder than in town, and Kakashi's grey coat was wearing thin at the joints. He tugged on his scarf, out of habit more than anything, and trudged steadily towards the far, southwest corner.

Obito's grave sat under a tree by the stone wall of the yard. Like many here, Obito did not lie alone. Obito's parents had gone well before their time, and Obito had joined them too soon after. Now, for finances sake, they lay stacked upon each other in the most incredibly morbid way Kakashi thought possible.

Uchiha, the grave marker read.

Kakashi dusted off the dried out, snow laden flowers he had brought last time and placed the fresh bouquet in the small metal canister adorning the side of the grey stone. When he was satisfied with his work (and he had to admit Naruto was right, the flowers were already losing petals) he stepped back.

He closed his eyes to gather his thoughts. He shifted his weight a little, letting it all rest on his back foot as he settled in for the afternoon.

"So...I guess I should start with I'm sorry. I know I'm late. Not that you were ever on time." A gentle breeze brought more cold and Kakashi hunched in on himself. "Honestly, it's been a crazy couple of months. If you want to hear about it."

* * *

Having seen to Obito's birthday flowers, Kakashi sat in the parking lot of Taco Bell. The clock approached one in the morning, and his food was long gone, but he didn't move to clean up or go anywhere. There was nowhere to go, really. At least, no point to going.

So he stayed and watched drunk college students stumble into the fast food joint and lone cars pull up and speed off.

Kakashi had watched many people pass out of his life, starting with his mother, who died the day he was born due to "complications". His father followed shortly after. Kakashi came home at thirteen years old to find the man lying dead on the floor of his bedroom.

That was when talk of a curse began. Sometimes from classmates, who avoided his sullen self like he was marked, but mostly from adults. Adults who forgot children could hear them and would tut about how "of course the poor Hatake boy was going to have a hard time" and "what was his father thinking."

After all, everyone knew that a suicide was a cursed death.

In due time Kakashi lost his best friend, Obito. His only other friend, Rin. His long time coworker and the best social worker he had ever known, Hayate.

The only grave he didn't visit was Hayate's. Yugao, understandably, wanted nothing to do with him.

Kakashi understood, he thought, why his father might have done what he did after all. He might have once hated the man for it, but there were people who might have lived had Kakashi died long ago.

Kakashi was a coward.

* * *

Naruto knew Ino was up to something. She'd been acting weird all week, showing up early to the store. When asked, she simply said she wanted to "hang out" before he booted him out the door for the day.

He and the other girl had never been close. In some ways she had been as much a competitor to Sakura's attention as Sasuke. But Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were attached at the hip (except when Sasuke was being an exceptional tool), and Ino did always eventually fall by the wayside despite Naruto's worries.

Now that he worked with her he could almost feel bad.

"So," Ino said, leaning too far over the counter by the cash register with a sly smirk, "That Hinata girl seems to be in here a lot."

Naruto tried to pay attention but his stash of books was under the counter.

"Oh come on," Ino pouted. "You're being weird. You're reading way too much, you barely talk to anyone-"

"Everyone's at work, Ino. I'm the only one who works the graveyard shift. When am I supposed to have time for social hour?"

Ino sighed and looked around for a place to sit. Failing to find a stool, she hopped up on the counter. Naruto leaned back to give her space.

"You don't have to act like you aren't upset. Sakura's not talking to me, either, you know." Ino said. She picked up a stray petal from the counter and let it rest between her fingers.

"There's nothing to talk about, Ino."

Ino regarded him while crushing the petal between her fingers. Naruto made a point of reaching for his book (one of Jiraiya's much later works) and opening it.

'You know something, Naruto. I used to think you were cool. But clearly I was wrong. Those two have been there for you since you were what, six? And you give up so easily."

She hopped off the counter to prove her point and stalked off.

Naruto sighed. He didn't even like reading.

* * *

Kakashi liked to think himself a careful and considered man. So when he pulled up to the low lying concrete building that was Yamanaka Gardens, he decided he must have been losing it. What other excuse did he have for himself?

This is what he got for making decisions after bad Taco Bell and whiskey.

Yamanaka Garden's was a bit like a Home Depot and a flower shop had a baby. Walking into the cool, concrete storefront, Kakashi immediately knew there was no other place Naruto could have possibly worked. It wouldn't have been right. The place was empty. Garden equipment hung on the wall, and one side of the room was lined with flower. There were pamphlets, plants, wierd garden decorations, and even a shelf full of gnomes. It was charming, disorganized chaos.

There was a small, concrete block with a thin sheet of plywood on top and a cash register on top of that. Very makeshift. Very Naruto. Kakashi eyed a small silver bell by the cash register with paper reading "ring me" in familiar handwriting taped to it, but chickened out. He drifted over to the brightly colored flowers instead. Rin had always liked sunflowers, though he didn't see any. Maybe something in her color purple would suffice.

He heard the faint sound of voices and turned to see a blonde young woman in a purple skirt and faux fur coat walk in. She stared straight at Kakashi, eyes lighting up.

Ino, something or another.

Ino, surprisingly, didn't talk to him. He recalled her being very chatty. Instead she took up a position near him, perusing the flowers like she was on a mission. If she hadn't been so terribly obvious about seeing him Kakashi might have thought it innocuous. Instead it was annoying.

He tried to look interested in the tulips.

She inched closer, dragging a finger over some daisies.

Kakashi turned to try and get a better look at the flowers behind him. He felt more than saw Ino lean out of her way to keep his face in sight.

He shifted a little to the right. She suddenly found tulips very interesting.

"Ah, just be sure to water it, ok? But not too much. Call me if you have any questions." Kakashi had never been so relieved in his life to hear Naruto's voice.

He looked up just as Naruto and a dark haired woman in a fluffy coat came through a door on the far side of the room.

"Thank you, Naruto. You're too kind." The woman held a lovely potted flower in her hand. It was a beautiful, yellow thing, round and with hundreds of tiny fanning petals.

"I mean, it won't bloom again after this first one. Are you sure you don't want something hardier?"

"It's perfect."

Naruto was headed straight for the cash register, and thankfully Ino appeared riveted on what he was doing, her eyes tracking him and the customer intensely. Kakashi took the opportunity to put some distance between them, though he continued to lurk in the rows of flowers.

Naruto was perfectly pleasant, though he still looked tired. He seemed a bit quieter, but rang the woman up and sent her off with a wave. When he was done, he reached under the makeshift table and pulled out a very familiar orange book.

Something about the sight of his favorite novel brought Kakashi back to his senses. Why had he thought this was a good idea? This was a terrible idea.

He made up his mind to slip out quietly, when Ino cleared her throat.

"Uh, Naruto, we have a customer?"

Naruto's head snapped up. He locked eyes on Kakashi and his eyes went comically wide.

"Wh-what!?"

Ino heaved a sigh. "Honestly. Why do we even pay you? I'll be in the back."

She made a huge show of leaving the room for the back entrance, flipping her hair over her shoulder and tossing Kakashi a wave as she went.

Naruto stared.

Kakashi decided to bite the bullet.

"Yo."

"What are you doing here?" Naruto said. He looked distressed, and Kakashi almost felt the trip had been worth it if only for that look.

"Getting less shitty flowers," he said.

"You can't do that!" Naruto waved his arms frantically. "We're not supposed to see each other. At all. What is wrong with you?"

Kakashi snorted. "Actually, I believe the terms of the deal were that you would leave me alone . Never said anything about having to leave youalone."

"Wh-but you. You. What the hell, Kakashi?" Naruto was blubbering now, half words and thoughts tumbling out of his mouth. "What the hell?"

Kakashi gave his best customer service smile.

Naruto scowled and stalked around the counter towards Kakashi. He came to stop in front of him, arms crossed, and glared. "All right, what do you want?"

Kakashi waved at the surrounding tulips and daisies. "Looking for something for my friend."

"Is this birthday friend?"

"Ah, no, different friend. It's been awhile since we've spoken. She likes purple."

Naruto sighed and began skulking around the shelves like this was the last possible thing he wanted to do. Kakashi followed with mock cheer.

"You're really annoying and weird, you know that?" Naruto told him.

"Is that any way to treat a valued customer? You're the one who called my flowers shitty."

Naruto smiled just a bit. "They were."

He walked past the rows of flowers to a potted plant section. He reached up and pulled down a small grey pot.

"Here." He shoved the pot at him. "It's better than getting her a dead plant, anyways. And super easy to take care of."

Kakashi regarded the small pot. The tag read "African Violet".

"Perhaps," he said, "I could get her some dead plants too."

Naruto looked at him funny, but obligingly grabbed the flowers Kakashi pointed out and quickly threw together an arrangement for him. Though Kakashi noticed more than once when he pointed out a plant, that Naruto would reach for something else instead. He decided not to say anything.

The total was surprisingly high, but part of Kakashi could feel Obito's approval. Rin deserved the best after all.

"Anything else?" Naruto asked as he wound a ribbon around the violet's pot.

Kakashi shook his head.

"What no love notes?"

Kakashi snorted. "Not for the dead, no."

Naruto fell silent and finished ringing him up.

He took his plants, nodded goodbye, and watched as Naruto watched him leave feeling uneasy.

* * *

Ino stormed into the room the second Kakashi was out the door.

"What was that?"

"Were you watching? Ino what the hell?"

Ino whirled on him, cornering him behind the cash register. "What was that? That was hospital guy right? Is this the one Sakura was on about?"

Naruto scowled, and ducked around her. He had work to do.

"Hey." Ino grabbed him by the back of his jacket. "Naruto you total dork. Are you ok?"

Naruto jerked. His first instinct when people grabbed him was to deck him, but Ino stared up at him in such earnest, and a year stateside had dulled the jumpiness he once had. Instead he almost felt touched as Ino searched his face.

"You look clammy. Is something wrong?"

"I was actually kind of annoyed." Naruto said, but he smiled, and he let Ino manhandle him. It was nice, really, the small things that reminded him she was his friend too. The slight barrier that was broken between friends when they touched. She pushed him into a chair behind the counter. Naruto tried to seem like he wasn't worried. "He's a bit weird."

Ino nodded, and hopped up on the counter. "Yeah, but he seemed nice enough. I was worried for a bit there. I should not be the one looking out for your exceedingly abnormal mental health."

Naruto grinned. "Well, he's a nice guy when he's not sarcastic."

Ino grinned. "Then what's the problem?"

Naruto thought about that for a minute.

Ino looked towards the store front window where Naruto could see Kakashi shuffling his flowers into one arm.

Naruto had never thought himself the kind of person to give up. Actually he'd built his life up around the principle of persistence.

"I'll be right back," he told Ino. He grabbed his coat, decision made.

After all, he'd always been one to follow his gut.

* * *

He was at his car, balancing all his flowers in one arm and trying to dig his keys out of his pocket when he heard the door open.

"Wait!" Naruto skidded across the snow and came to a stop in front of him. He bent over, hands on knees to catch his breath, using Kakashi's car for support. When he could at last stand, Naruto used the back of Kakashi's car to pull himself up straight.

"Look you. You're weird-"

"Thanks."

"Let me finish! Anyways. You're weird. And you look cursed. And I don't really get what the hell your problem is, telling me to leave you alone and then showing up here like that. You can't just mess with people that way! I don't care who you are."

Kakashi opened his mouth to say something.

"And- hold on I'm not done- I don't care what you think. About me or any of this. And I especially don't like you or anything. But you keep showing up in my life so either ask for my help or don't. And I won't take no for an answer. Because honestly I'm getting sick of all my friends disappearing and I think I'm going to start doing things right ."

Kakashi stared blankly. He… could not begin to wrap his head around that.

Naruto was looking at him expectantly.

"Let me get this straight," Kakashi said slowly, "You don't like me."

"Right. Wait-"

"And you want me to ask for your help."

Naruto nodded looking self satisfied. "Right, and you're going to get it whether you like it or not."

Naruto took a step forward and his hands reached out to touch the air above Kakashi's head.

"I can fix this."

Kakashi wanted to know if Naruto saw over his head what he had seen over Sasuke's. Wanted to know if Naruto had ever successfully lifted a curse or if the certainty with which he said that was a lie.

Instead he said "Fine."


	8. Rules

When Naruto got back to his apartment he was shaking. Naruto had never been one to wholly think things through. It was both his gift and his failing. He collapsed onto his couch and let his mind run wild.

Want a job straight after school? Military will take you. Want to have some fun? Go infantry! Want even more fun? Deploy to an active warzone! Of course some of his decisions had been better. His decision to doggedly follow Sasuke around starting in middle school had led to the other eventually accepting his friendship, though he griped about it. And his decision to befriend Gaara, though flawed and full of pain, had saved his life. And the military hadn't been a bad decision per se, just an ill informed one. Naruto had loved that job.

Naruto had an inability to let things lie.

He still wasn't a hundred percent sure he knew what he was doing with Kakashi. He stared down at a rumpled list, full of items crossed and double crossed. He'd started it at work, stuffing it into his pocket and pulling it out again as new thoughts occurred.

 _How To Help Kakashi:_

 _Step one X  
_ _Step one X  
_ _STEP ONE: Plants? X  
Step one meditation? X  
Plants  
The temple X  
Make new friends  
Talk to Tsunade X  
Don't talk to Tsunade  
Find better qualified person to do this  
Therapists?  
Talk  
Step 2: Make backup plan_

It was, perhaps, the most demoralizing list Naruto had ever conceived because, quite frankly, he had no idea what he was doing. When Naruto lived with Jiraiya the older man had held all the answers. Large or small, no matter how stupid Naruto sounded when he asked. And Naruto had asked some doozies.

Before Jiraiya died, Tsunade had been haunted by a curse. The day she showed up for the funeral, it was like a veil had been lifted from her face. When Naruto thought to ask about it, Tsunade had pressed a kiss to his forehead and handed him a necklace.

"Your godfather was a stubborn old man. You take after him."

At the time it had seemed a compliment.

Naruto's hands went to his stomach, where an old tattoo stretch across skin. A gift for his sixteenth birthday, the last gift he had gotten before Jiraiya's passing. Jiraiya had been weird. Jiraiya had been kind. Jiraiya had been the one to teach Naruto how to lock away the bad thoughts and spirits from his head. Of course, Jiraiya had, apparently, learned from a master years ago. That's what he always said. Naruto had barely been taught how to cook before Jiraiya left.

Still, Naruto thought back to the first day he showed up on Jiraiya's door, with a seven year old back pack containing everything he owned and an attitude.

He pulled out the list again.

* * *

Rin was kept in a small, family run graveyard behind a church, opposite Obito's resting place in the southmost part of town. Kakashi knew it must kill him, even in death, to be so far. He visited her early in the morning, dropped off the arrangement, and left only after telling Rin everything he could think of in regards to the last few weeks. And of course, reassured her he had not forgotten Obito's birthday.

If that made him two hours late, no one appeared in the office to comment.

Kakashi obediently showed up to work at the insistence of Naruto, who sent him a frantic text about how he had a plan, and he would come get Kakashi when he was ready to enact it.

Neither Yamato, Guy, or Lee were in to distract him. Kakashi carefully placed his new African violet on the desk by Yamato's Buddha board. Kakashi did not know anything about plants, but it seemed fine with this arrangement.

He hoped he was doing all this right.

"Hey Kakashi, have you seen Yamato?" Genma asked, appearing by his desk from nowhere. "Nice plant."

"No."

Genma looked around the office, frowning, and chewed on his toothpick. "Ok. Let me know when you see him. Honestly sometimes I worry about that guy. Oh, speaking of which, did you get that email?"

"Pardon?"

"Guy's inviting everyone out to barbecue to celebrate Lee's first independent case. No more ride alongs."

"Great," Kakashi said, flipping open his book. Last chapter.

"I'll tell him you're not coming then." Genma said, and smartly moved away from Kakashi's personal space.

* * *

On Saturday, the doorbell rang at the ungodly hour of 4:30AM. Kakashi groaned and rolled out of bed, feeling his shoulder pop and his back groan in protest. He shuffled to his door bare footed and in a white shirt and boxers from the night before, and, without thinking, threw his door open.

Naruto grinned up at him from beside a couch Kakashi had never seen before. "Good morning."

Kakashi rubbed at his eyes. Nope. Not a dream. Not that he ever dreamed of Naruto anyways.

"What are you doing here?"

Naruto was bundled up in a hat and his bright orange parka, which jumped out even in the darkness of a shitty apartment hallway in winter. Kakashi found the entire visage a bit too bright for his eyes and looked anywhere but at Naruto.

"Man," the younger man scrunched up his nose like he was seeing something truly unfortunate, "I don't think I've ever seen you without ten layers of clothes and that stupid scarf. Though I was expecting it to take a bit longer to get your pants off."

Kakashi's hand immediately went to his face with an audible slap. Naruto looked like he might start laughing and Kakashi almost hissed as he retreated into the apartment and its welcoming darkness.

"I really love the hair, by the way," Naruto said, following Kakashi inside, and flipping on the lights. Who did he think he was? "Man you live like a bat...or a hermit I guess. You got soda?"

"I'll be back," Kakashi said, and slammed the door to his room.

When he returned to the kitchen and living area he found Naruto stripped down to his t-shirt and shoving the couch through the doorway. Sans shoes, oversized coat, and gloves, Naruto looked even younger and Kakashi felt a twinge of discomfort at his own aching bones. Kakashi got a much better look at Naruto's prosthetic. The hand was fairly innocuous, a pale grey color, sort of plastic looking, like a mannequin. It attached at the wrist to a long black shiny limb with what looked like silver sharpie scribbled all over it, and a wire wound up the side. The black plastic and wire disappeared up under the sleeve of Naruto's dark grey tech shirt, and a necklace with dog tags and a small charm had swung free from the collar.

Kakashi nursed a cup of instant coffee, now dressed in an old sweatshirt and real pants, and watched Naruto from the kitchen counter while he pretended to check his email on his phone.

"I know this is unexpected," Naruto said as he heaved the couch into the far side of the carpeted living area, "But I was thinking about this curse stuff, and Jiraiya, and he always used to do this."

"Break into people's homes?"

Naruto paused, adjusted the way he was bracing his shoulder against the couch. He started inching it into position. "Stop complaining. Mornings are good for the soul. If Jiraiya thought his luck was turning bad, he'd rearrange the furniture. It's part of the plan."

How he had gotten past Chiyo was still a mystery, but the haze of sleep was still wearing off. Kakashi vehemently disagreed about the mornings and furniture, but figured, between Naruto's two jobs and his own hectic schedule mornings made some kind of sense for meeting up to discuss this curse business. Though he also would have appreciated warning.

"I see."

"Will you just believe me? I have a great plan you know." He paused, pulled out a crumpled notebook paper, but whipped it away when Kakashi made to try and read it. "No. That'll ruin it."

Kakashi sighed and let Naruto do as he pleased. "How do you know how to do this, anyways?"

Naruto looked thoughtful for a moment as he shoved the paper back into his front jeans pocket. "I guess my godfather showed me stuff. For the most part."

"I see. You and him were close?"

"Yeah. Yeah we were." Naruto spent another five minutes trying to force the couch into a corner where it would not fit. When he was satisfied with his work he stood and looked around the room. He sighed. "This is a disaster."

"There's barely anything here."

"I know!" Naruto cried, waving his arms around. "I mean Jesus. You don't have dishes, pictures, a tv, and you need curtains."

"I haven't needed curtains in fifteen years. And don't go through my cabinets without asking," Kakashi said dryly.

"I was looking for soda you weirdo. Who only has two plates?"

"I live alone."

Naruto threw him a look and collapsed on the couch. He gestured for Kakashi to join him. Kakashi pointedly sat on the bar stool in the kitchen. Naruto rolled his eyes.

"Listen smart ass. There's rules ok? To the curse thing. Even if it doesn't look like it. Right. Now tell me something, do you sleep with your head by a window?"

Kakashi paused in his coffee. "What?"

"Rules," Naruto repeated, holding up his hand so he could count off on his fingers, "One is never sleep with your head to a door or a window, also make sure mirrors are placed so they can deflect stuff coming into your house back out. Your living room should be painted red. If you don't fill the space, something else will fill it for you. If you let the house get dirty it will get mad at you. Never kill spiders, always let them out of the house. Take off your shoes at the door. You only allow into your life the things you allow into your home. Case in point, you don't have friends because you don't have a couch."

"I don't have a couch because I don't have friends." As if that was somehow better.

Naruto scrunched up his face in that way he did when he was thinking about something, but also thought the other person might be crazy. "The universe doesn't care Kakashi. Time is relative. You don't have a couch because you don't have friends or you don't have friends because you don't have a couch. Doesn't matter."

"That's not how relativity works."

Naruto threw his hands in the air and stood. "Fine, but you still have to listen to me. I'm helping you. Let's go shopping."

* * *

Naruto's help was quickly costing Kakashi money as they coasted through Walmart.

Walmart, at six AM, it turned out, was otherworldly. The dawn was just barely beginning to crest and stars still scattered across the sky above the endless parking lot. The smell of death and old people was masked under cleaning detergents and the fluorescents bounced off the white tile inside the store as bright as if the sun was out. The only other people in the store were employees and one or two very busy looking people in suits.

Naruto treated it like his own personal playground, coasting through the aisles and grabbing an excessive number of candles. He pushed the buttons on all the displays and would back track and wander like neither he nor Kakashi had better places to be.

"Alright, so the first thing you need to learn is, bad things come in threes," Naruto told Kakashi as he dug through a shelf of curtains. "Blue or green?"

"Grey. Threes?"

Naruto scowled and grabbed a grey and blue checkered curtain from the bargain bin. "Yeah. Yeah it's something Jiraiya said. Also you need plates."

"That's very vague." Kakashi said, following Naruto to the kitchenware.

"Well maybe. I dunno. But it's true. Like take me. I lost my mom, and dad, and godfather. So I know that I can't lose anymore parents because I already lost three."

Unwillingly Kakashi thought back to Rin, Obito, and his father. "Does that only apply to deaths or…?"

"No," Naruto said as they rounded the corner of an aisle and found the plates. "It's more a thematic grouping thing. Or timing. So like, my best friend Gaara, right? He lost his mother, brother, and was disowned by his dad in like, a very short period of time. And then Sasuke lost his mom, dad, and his brother got put in jail. Actually that is a lot of people being dead, huh."

Kakashi snorted and let Naruto get him a set of Star Wars plates. By his count Naruto now had three best friends and he suspected there would be more before this was over.

"Ah, here's a good one. My senior year of high school," Naruto counted off on his fingers, "I flunked and had to repeat a year, one of my teachers purposefully tried to get me expelled, and the old geezer who took care of me when I was very little died and I had to go to the funeral and stuff. Terrible year. Bad things in threes."

Kakashi considered this while Naruto steered them towards the arts and crafts section.

"And how are you sure it's not all in your head?" Kakashi asked and tried to stand so as to keep himself between Naruto and the glitter. He was not about to let that happen.

Naruto paid him no mind and was instead looking at the sharpies. Kakashi could not decide which would be worse. In the end he watched, resigned to his fate, as Naruto threw a pack of metallic and neon sharpies and lined post-its into his cart.

"Look, it's in your head, it isn't in your head, does it matter if it works? You can't seriously tell me there's no patterns of three in your life, can you?"

Kakashi did not answer.

"Hm. Let's stop by the garden section before we go ok?"

* * *

Kakashi learned a lot about Naruto very quickly. He was a talker who talked with his hands. He lived on ramen and soda. Sometimes tea. He knew far more about plants than anyone else. He had several "hands" but had only brought the grey one, and he could write with both, and his handwriting was terrible either way.

"I was a righty back when I had a right to be a righty with." Naruto chuckled, using a gold sharpie and a post it to write out a list of items they had apparently missed on their shopping trip.

His home was a disaster. The checkered curtains hung over his window, plants sat on his window sill. Each plant had a name now. Naruto had been delighted that Kakashi had kept his original gift and dubbed it Mr. Ukki in pink highlighter pen. A red blanket hung on the back of the chocolate colored couch. His cabinets were full of mismatched plates. Empty walls were now covered in red. Red paper. Red lights. Red post-its. Anything red in the house was pinned to Kakashi's living room wall. Naruto had also found a fake deer head lamp and fallen in love with it. And obviously a lamp needed a side table, so Kakashi had that now too.

"I'll get you a TV," Naruto said. He and Kakashi stood in the kitchen, surveying his work. "Maybe after lunch."

"I wasn't kidding about interior decorating thing, you know," Kakashi said.

Naruto huffed and stomped to a cabinet to grab the ramen he had bought and put there. Kakashi watched him. Naruto was dangerous because he was far too easy to be around. Already Kakashi had caught himself multiple times almost forgetting why it was they were doing all this. Naruto had him wrapped around his finger. If Obito could've seen it, he'd have laughed himself to death, Kakashi knew. Or worse, have been jealous. It took Obito years to realize the extent to which Kakashi liked him, and longer to realize his inability to say no to someone he liked. Naruto had Kakashi heeling like a well trained dog in no time at all.

"You want some?" Naruto asked, holding up another cup ramen by the microwave.

"No," Kakashi said. He would at least pretend he had his pride.

"Suit yourself," Naruto sat down at the kitchen counter with his ramen and waited.

Kakashi watched him.

"You're being creepy again."

"Sorry."

"No you aren't." Naruto looked up from his ramen and stared directly at Kakashi. Kakashi felt his scar like it burned on his face. Naruto smiled. "What's on your mind?"

"Why are you marked?" Well who needed subtlety? Clearly not Kakashi master of human communication.

Naruto took the question in stride though, and his hands came together in a thoughtful way under his chin as he mulled it over.

"When you say marked...do you mean these?" he pointed at his whiskers.

Kakashi nodded, scared his voice might not work because suddenly he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

"Well. Do you want the story Jiraiya told me, or the story the social worker told me?"

"Jiraiya was your godfather?" Kakashi carefully placed his hand on the counter for support.

Naruto nodded. "According to him, a really long time ago, my mom's family encountered an evil spirit. A tricky spirit. And it liked us. So it followed us and tried to fuck up our lives. It happens to other people too. Spirits are dicks. They do this all the time, apparently. My godfather taught me how to spot when it was coming, and how to avoid it. He even helped me make some wards to make it easier. It's not all bad though. They're may be a spirit monster following me around, but because he's always around I can tell when people around me are cursed, or have spirits or something. So that's good. Also, spirits can curse people."

"So they're the cause?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto thought about it some more. It was kind of funny watching him because Kakashi could practically hear the gears. "Jiraiya said spirits are like curses who have, um, agency? And that curses if you feed them too much turn into spirits? But it takes many years and I mean, most people who are cursed, you know, they kind of..."

Naruto made a slicing motion across his throat.

"Thanks," Kakashi said.

Naruto opened his ramen cup fully, grabbed his chopsticks and began to eat instead of answering that and Kakashi couldn't blame him.

"What did the social services guy say?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto slowed down his inhalation of the ramen to grin and around a mouth full of noodles said, "He said I have shitty luck."

* * *

Naruto stayed for dinner, curled up on Kakashi's couch like he was meant to be there. He dug through a box of Kakashi's old things looking for "good luck" charms apparently. A TV had been mysteriously delivered to the door with a note that said. "Don't fuck it up," and that plus the hideous deer lamp was the light by which Naruto conducted what felt like the most invasive dissection of Kakashi's life. Kakashi watched from the kitchen while Naruto placed what few photos he kept in a pile with reverence, and tossed old bills and leases to the side.

Refusing to allow Naruto to go to an early grave via malnutrition Kakashi claimed he couldn't in good faith let him leave and forced the other man to stay for a proper meal. That was really the only reason they were still here like this. Kakashi wasn't a terribly good cook, but he could throw some vegetables in a pan and that seemed like a good start.

"Hey, Kakashi," Naruto called from the living room.

"Hm?"

"Did you graduate from Stanford or am I actually crazy?"

Kakashi stared at his sizzling vegetables. He really really wasn't catching a break tonight. Naruto sat hunched over his old college diploma.

"It was a long time ago," Kakashi said.

Naruto whirled around. Wide eyed, he raised the diploma as if to show Kakashi. "You graduated from Stanford."

Kakashi decided to add the noodles to the pan. He should have grabbed some fish or pork from the freezer first.

"You must be a genius." Naruto turned the diploma back over and studied it quietly. He ran his thumb along the frame. After several minutes of silence punctuated by the sizzling vegetables and Kakashi scraping the pan, he thought perhaps he was safe. He grabbed some of the new Star Wars plates down from the shelf by the sink and started trying to dole out vegetables appropriately.

"Why psychology? And why did you come back here?"

Kakashi sighed. He placed the plates on the counter bar and looked at Naruto, trying to convey as much seriousness as he could through his one good eye. Naruto didn't back down, and he was looking at Kakashi differently than before, and part of Kakashi ached at that because hadn't it been nice when he wasn't a failure in this man's eyes? Hadn't it been nice to pretend for a moment they were meeting at some kind of place of normalcy?

"I got into Stanford at sixteen. I was, as you said, a genius. I wanted to study psychology so I could be a social worker, or perhaps do some kind of counseling with families. The year I got my bachelor's my best friend and I got into a very serious car wreck. I lost my eye, he lost a lot more. I still went into social work, but quit before I got my master's. Turns out I didn't have the stomach for it. Probably better for everyone I wasn't around."

Naruto continued to stare.

"So I got a job where I wouldn't hurt anyone. For the most part. Anything else you want to know while you're digging around in there?"

Naruto looked mortified, and lowered the degree slowly into the pile where he'd set Kakashi's photos. He placed his hands in his lap like he was scared if he didn't he might break something. Kakashi slid into a bar stool chair.

"Come eat."

Naruto moved very slowly. He sat down without making a sound and quietly picked up his chopsticks in his left hand and proceeded to eat as neatly as Kakashi had ever seen him. He got halfway through the broccoli on his plate before he started pushing his food around more than eating it. The silence became painful, and Kakashi opted to look at his food, suddenly not feeling as hungry.

"I uh, didn't get into college," Naruto said, barely above a whisper. "I applied to a bunch. All the state ones. Plus everything in California too. It's sunny in southern California so I thought it would be nice, you know? Even if it was expensive. I wrote a really good essay too. Kind Jiraiya would be proud of and…" Naruto shrugged. "Got a rejection letter from every single one. Never told Sakura or Sasuke I even applied or anything. They both got into their top two so. I mean. I knew I wasn't going to get in. I'm not really college material. It's cool that you went though. Must've been impressive."

Kakashi let Naruto ramble and watched his face. Naruto seemed to be torn between embarrassed and nervous, and he kept looking at Kakashi like he was waiting for something.

"What did you want to study?" Kakashi asked, hoping he was doing this right.

Naruto seemed to relax, and Kakashi felt the mood lighten almost as if the room itself had grown lighter. "Actually there were two things and I hadn't picked yet. I mean there's so many options but," Naruto grinned, "I was thinking either like, something in history or international studies. Or I'd be physical therapist. That's a super important job. I probably don't have what it takes to be a surgeon like Sakura but that would be cool. Or maybe I'd do ecology. I mean. It's too late now for any of that of course. And I'd probably minor in something. So maybe I'd do ecology with a minor in history or, well, but-"

"Naruto."

"Huh? Oh, sorry I'm rambling." Naruto flushed.

"How old are you?" Kakashi asked. Their dinner sat forgotten.

Naruto fidgeted. "Ah, twenty-four."

Kakashi laughed. "You are far, far too young to be saying anything is too late."

Naruto seemed to take a minute to process that. Then, slowly, a grin spread along his face. And yeah, Naruto had a smile like he was planning something devious and probably hilarious and Kakashi may have been growing too fond of it too quickly.

"Is that some age old wisdom, Kakashi?"

"Yes. And you should listen to your elders, if you know what's good for you. Eat your vegetables."

Naruto stuck out his tongue. "Make me."

Kakashi plucked a vegetable off Naruto plate and shoved it in his smartass mouth before he could even blink. Naruto spluttered, and it was kind of disgusting, but as Naruto looked at him with truly honestly horrified eyes, Kakashi decided that victory was well worth some spit.

Kakashi gave him his sweetest smile. "What's wrong Naruto?"

Naruto had to chew and swallow before he could speak. He looked pained as he swallowed down the broccoli with an audible gulp.

"You can't just shove things in my mouth!"

Kakashi was clearly delirious because he simply leaned forward, smile still in place. Naruto edged away, tipping his stool into a precarious position.

"That's too bad. I had such plans for tonight."

Naruto yelped and fell off his stool and Kakashi broke. He bent over the counter, laughing, and tried to breathe.

Naruto was steaming red from the floor. "What is wrong with you? Are you crazy? Why are you like this?"

And for a moment Kakashi felt like everything he had worried about today had been swept away. He could think clearly. Or maybe he was actually insane now and didn't know it. The latter seemed more likely. He reached out to Naruto and Naruto scrambled back, hitting his head against the wall.

Kakashi pinched him. He sighed. "You're definitely real."

"And you're definitely crazy!" Naruto declared, standing up. His cheeks were still stained red, and he wouldn't meet Kakashi's eyes but he lookedgood. Happy. Real.

Kakashi liked that.

* * *

"So, in your honest opinion, as a student of psychology-"

"Just a bachelor's-"

"From Stanford!"

"That really doesn't mean as much as you think."

Naruto threw him a look from where he was hunched over on the couch, pulling on his boots. Kakashi watched as Naruto pulled on each new layer. Sweatshirt followed by parka, socks then another set of socks, then boots. The entire time Naruto yammered on.

"Ok but like, how many people do you think need therapy?"

Kakashi rolled his eyes from where he leant against his door. "Everyone. Everyone needs therapy."

Naruto looked up from his boot laces and pulled on a glove. "That's a cheap answer."

"It's true. Never met a person who wasn't a little fucked in the head, honestly."

Naruto looked around for his other glove for a moment, frowning when it didn't immediately appear. After a bit of searching he dug it out with a victorious wave of his arm from between the couch cushions.

"Ok, but, like what about your friends?" he asked, pulling on the glove and standing.

"I don't have friends."

"What about my friends?"

Kakashi considered that a moment because this was one of those things he was sure there was a right answer to, and then the answer he would probably give because he was an idiot.

"What about Sasuke?" Naruto asked. And if he was being serious his tone was surprisingly light.

Kakashi looked at the ground. "Everyone Naruto." and when Naruto did not move. "But yes, especially Sasuke."

Naruto shuffled to the door, a soft smile on his face. It wasn't like his devious one, but more like the one he showed Kakashi in the parking lot by the grocery store. His sad smile.

"I keep telling him that," Naruto said, "Anyways. I should go."

They stood in the doorway, neither moving. Naruto was, perhaps, taller than Kakashi realized, though he suspected the hair and hat made up some of that height. Naruto shuffled his weight from foot to foot and inched towards the door even as he kept his eyes on Kakashi.

"So." Kakashi said. "I guess I'll see you the next time you feel like showing up unannounced then?"

"Oh, well." Naruto's hand was on the door knob now. "I could text you. Or call."

"You could."

"Maybe tomorrow? O-or the next day?"

"Whichever works."

They were standing there staring at each other again. And Naruto was turning red, which probably meant he should go outside already but.

"Sorry if I got in the way today," Naruto said.

"It's fine, I didn't have plans."

Naruto nodded. His hand tightened on the door handle but his eyes didn't leave Kakashi's face.

Naruto was. Naruto was a lot more attractive right now than Kakashi remembered him being. Maybe he was delirious after all. Maybe he really really wanted to kiss this idiot too but that thought was definitely not the one he meant to have.

"Um, Kakashi?" Naruto was so quiet Kakashi had to lean in. Suddenly his apartment was very hot. And maybe Kakashi had thought about kissing Naruto once before.

Naruto seemed very close all of a sudden.

Maybe that thought had occurred more than once.

"Yes?"

Naruto opened his mouth.

Kakashi's phone rang. They jumped. Naruto wound up leaning against the door and Kakashi whirled around. His cell phone, forgotten, vibrated violently against the counter over by the coffee machine, ringer deafening in the quiet moment.

Naruto chuckled and looked at the ground. "You're a popular guy Kakashi."

Kakashi looked at Naruto and felt truly bewildered. For a number of reasons, actually, but he went with the first one.

"No. No one has my number but you."

Naruto blinked. "I'm not calling you."

Obviously, but Kakashi walked over to the phone and picked up. "Hello?"

"Hello, this is Karin from the Yakushi Medical Center, is this Kakashi Hatake?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Hatake, you were listed as an emergency contact for one of our patients, a um, Yama-"

"Yamato?'

"Er, yes, Tenzou?"

Kakashi felt reality begin to settle back into place. His sudden rash foolish teasing and the dinner and everything felt stark and hollow. Naruto froze at the door and watched him carefully, mouth pressed into a straight line.

"What happened?" Kakashi asked, as he went to find his coat.


	9. Atypical

"We're keeping him under twenty four hour observation. He may be in and out of it for a while," the nurse said and Kakashi nodded. The whole world was a whirling daze right now and he just wanted to sit. "He should be fine but… well we're assuming the worst due to his history. Mr. Hatake, it would be a huge help to us if you could tell us if his behavior had changed recently?"

Kakashi stood in a hallway now, and everyone else in the world seemed to completely disregard his existence. Nurses and doctors buzzed past, attending to a hundred small crises a minute while Kakashi couldn't even fathom the one right in front of him.

How many times would this happen?

"I...not that I know of. We hadn't talked in awhile." They hadn't had they? Kakashi had been so careful.

"You were aware he was on medication?"

As aware as anyone could be. He had never pushed. Never wanted to invade that privacy. "Yes. But he told me it was under control."

"Did you know he stopped taking it?"

Why would anyone- no Kakashi knew why. But never had Yamato struck him as someone who would. Yamato was so careful, so controlled. It would never be an accident or a moment of forgetfulness with him. "I...no."

The nurse's eyes were washed out and tired, and he noted a few things on the clipboard. "You're welcome to stay with him."

With that, the nurse abandoned Kakashi in the hall. He turned back to where he knew Yamato's room to be.

Yamato was being kept in a small room with a bed and a very large, privacy invading window. Kakashi lingered by it, feeling far too much like he was committing some perverse invasion of Yamato's personal problems, and reached for his book. As he opened it he realized he had finished. He sighed and put it away. Instead he flipped through his phone. Three emails. One from Genma containing a series of blurry photos Kakashi assumed were from barbecue. One from Danzou. He wanted to follow up about Dokku's case. One from Yamato. It was empty.

According to the nurse and the police officer Kakashi had to talk to upon arriving Yamato had been found by his neighbor who said he had been acting weird and so went to check up on him. Everyone was assuming due to Yamato's history that is was suicide.

Kakashi stared at the floor.

Death, he thought, looked a lot like sleeping. And without life filling their forms up humans looked a lot more fragile.

He could see his father for the first time without a shroud over his face.

Empty grey eyes mirroring his own stared up from the carpeted floor of their apartment. Kakashi knew he should call the cops but he went to the kitchen, closing his father's bedroom door behind him-

No. No, not that. It wasn't the same, not really.

"Mr. Hatake? We're sorry to inform you that Rin Nohara has passed away...no...no. I'm afraid she took her own life. Yes the parents have been informed we're calling you in regards to her letter…"

Stepping away from his memories and into the room, Kakashi took a seat by Yamato's side. Yamato looked pale and off colored in his hospital gown. The lights were too bright for the hour of night.

People walked by the extra large window, and Kakashi knew they were being watched closely. He felt tired. Tired to his bones. He thought about leaving to go find a new book or get food, but the idea of leaving anyone, Yamato especially, alone under the scrutiny of the glass and a stranger was unthinkable. So Kakashi stayed and zoned out.

Yamato woke up once Kakashi watching over him. Kakashi did not have time to pretend he was not staring intently. Yamato blinked bleary dark eyes and groaned. "...kashi?"

"You should go back to sleep." Kakashi said.

Yamato did not look like he was fully aware of himself, but he nodded and closed his eyes once more.

* * *

When Kakashi left Naruto on the doorstep of his apartment, he had looked like a broken man. Naruto knew he would not be far behind, even if he did have to go the long way. On foot.

Naruto did break into the hospital far more than he should have, but for once it was not to see Sakura. It took a lot of sweet talking, but eventually Shizune relented, and told him where Yamato was staying. He decided to leave out the fact Kakashi had asked him to go home.

He found Kakashi hunched over in his chair by Yamato's bed. It looked uncomfortable, like the man was trying to make himself smaller, and when he got close enough he saw that the other man was clearly asleep.

Yamato looked like death, and Naruto grimaced at the sight of the white flesh and sunken face. Feeling like he should do something, he he quickly went down the hall to a water fountain and got Yamato a fresh glass of water. He set it on the bedside table.

"Good luck, Yamato."

He looked over at Kakashi once more, and, carefully, set his coat down on the edge of the bed.

"You should lay down, Kakashi."

Sleeping Kakashi did not listen any better than awake Kakashi, so, carefully, Naruto pressed a hand to the back of his head and tried to get Kakashi lie down. Kakashi's head plopped down onto the edge of the bed. Naruto adjusted his coat so that it served as a better pillow.

When the two looked as comfortable as Naruto could make them, he sent a nod to the unseeing silence, prayed someone would have mercy on them, and slipped out the door.

* * *

Hospitals, whether he was waiting in them or a patient, always felt the same. And Kakashi visited the hospital frequently. Between bad luck, accidents, and the tragedies he'd outlived, he could count the time that had passed based on the punctuation marks of hospital visits. Endless blurs of white and blue, with a strong smell of antiseptic. A feeling of having been there too long, and that no one was listening. It reminded Kakashi of Walmart.

Lulled by hospital noise, he drifted in and out of consciousness himself, though without the help of drugs. And the next time, it was Yamato who watched Kakashi wake up.

"Good morning," Yamato said softly, and stared down at his hands. Kakashi had fallen asleep in the chair by Yamato's bed, a very familiar orange coat playing pillow under his head as he sat up.

Yamato would not look at Kakashi, which would not do at all. But of all the times he had been in a hospital, Kakashi had practiced for something like this. The words rolled around the back of his throat with a weight like a bowling ball as he tried to summon both the courage and know-how to make Yamato understand.

"Were you trying to kill yourself?" he managed to blurt out. And he sounded angry, even to himself.

Yamato had big, dark eyes, shaded by brown shaggy hair, set in a serious face. And they turned now to Kakashi. Yamato's barely there expressions flitted through several emotions, and even Kakashi, who had spent months showing Yamato how to best avoid Danzo and was apparently close enough to be considered an emergency contact, could not say for sure what it was Yamato felt.

At last Yamato smiled weakly. "No one's ever asked me quite like that before."

"Didn't see the need to pretend. You're going to be okay, aren't you?" And man he sounded like such an asshole.

Yamato looked away, sinking into his hospital bed, drowning in his hospital gown. "I may have made some...not so great decisions. About my meds."

"So it wasn't…?"

"Kakashi." Yamato reached out, but faltered and wound up fiddling with his hands in his blanket instead. "I've been dealing with this for a long time. And trust me, I don't want to keep winding up in the hospital."

Kakashi tried not to look so disgruntled, but probably failed. "You told me they were for depression so-"

"I am. Doesn't mean anything." Yamato grinned, like this was the weather, or the latest office gossip. "Depression is a light term for what I've got. I'm one of the lucky ones who will spend my entire life on meds that's how messed up my head is. But you don't have to worry about it. I've got it under control."

"This doesn't look like control."

Yamato sighed. "Stop being so difficult. They'll put me back on meds and everything will go back to being whatever it is."

Kakashi...did not like that answer. But Yamato wasn't looking at him anymore. He was looking like a man who was seeing things that weren't there. Kakashi could relate but desperately wished to never have to see that look again.

"When did you stop taking your meds?"

"A few weeks ago."

Kakashi wanted to ask many things. Why didn't you get help? Why are you here? Why did you do what you did? Why didn't you call me? He didn't know where to begin so he kept quiet.

"I just wanted to be off them for a bit so I could enjoy food again," Yamato said quietly, almost guiltily, as he looked over at Kakashi. "I can barely eat anything while I'm on them I mean. Christmas wasn't exactly great."

"I liked it," Kakashi admitted slowly.

Yamato smiled. They fell into silence.

There was a knock on the door.

Both men visibly startled and Kakashi spun in his chair.

"Delivery for a...Yamato? Oh what do you know." Naruto stood in the doorway, dressed in his green coveralls and a hoodie. He had snow covered boots and soaked pants, his hair stuck up at every angle but a natural one, and he grinned at them as he held out one of the most excessively large bouquets of roses Kakashi had ever seen. It was full of red and ribbon and balloons and was just generally tacky, even Kakashi could tell that.

Naruto took their stunned silence as gratitude and strode into the room. He pushed past Kakashi and knelt by Yamato's bed, presenting the roses and big balloon hearts.

"Yamato, I know we barely know each other. But all things considered I think the time we have spent together has been meaningful. And I don't believe in waiting for the right time. So, Yamato. Will you be my Valentine?"

Kakashi really really wanted to be mad, or at least a bit upset, but Yamato looked like he had broken entirely. He kept opening his mouth only for nothing to come out, and fearing for his protege's poor heart, he stood, and yanked on Naruto's collar.

"Naruto. Come on."

Naruto clung to the side of Yamato's bed. "But Kakashi~"

Kakashi thought about tugging harder, but Naruto already had an arm snaking around Yamato's. "Yamato, tell Kakashi he can't kick me out. I'm your Valentine."

"You can't keep breaking into the hospital." Kakashi said, strengthening his hold.

"I couldn't just leave Yamato."

"You were supposed to go home."

"It's not Valentine's day!" Both men stopped to look at Yamato, who's face suddenly locked into an unreadable mask as he turned red and looked away.

Naruto laughed nervously, sitting back up and clutching the roses. "Um, no. It was a joke…so um."

Yamato studiously stared down at the blanket.

Naruto sighed and stood up. "Yamato...here. You know I can, um, here."

Naruto placed the roses and balloon bouquet on the bedside table with care. "I would have gotten you a living plant, by the way, because dead ones are so dumb, but I literally just got off work, so I had to buy them from that grocery store, you know the one between here and Main. Anyways, even if you don't want to be my Valentine, they're yours. And sorry it's not Valentine's day." Naruto laughed again. "In my rush to get you something I didn't think it would matter."

Yamato looked up slowly. Naruto froze. Kakashi tried to read him, see if he should be dragging Naruto out by force. But Yamato gave a shallow nod.

"That's all right."

"Cool."

Naruto took a seat on the edge of Yamato's bed. And it seemed this was ok, as both seemed slightly more at ease. Kakashi allowed himself to relax.

"Sorry for barging in," Naruto said, "Kick me out if you want. Also I'm in here all the time. I don't know how long they're keeping you this time, but I can literally get you anything. I once snuck three Xboxes and a Wii in for the cancer ward."

Yamato smiled. "No. I- thanks for visiting. It means a lot."

"Where do you get this stuff?" Kakashi asked. Because it bothered him now more than ever that Naruto had the ability to acquire anything. And because any conversation was better than the one he and Yamato just had.

"Some of us have friends, Kakashi." Naruto rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Yamato.

The two fell back into their easy pattern from Christmas, with Naruto leading the conversation. Yamato seemed to appreciate it and made a sincere effort to keep up as Naruto let him know about every terrible thing he ever caught a nurse doing.

Kakashi did not feel better, memories pressed at the back of his eyelids, but for now he stopped, and tried not to worry.

* * *

"I just slipped up with my meds for a few weeks. Then like an idiot I overcompensated. I think it messes with my memory to be honest, but you don't have to worry." Yamato said earnestly, leaning forward towards Naruto like this might help emphasize his point. Naruto mirrored the action.

"I'm not a dumb, suicidal kid anymore," Yamato was fully animated and articulated, nothing like the corpse he'd been hours before, "My brain's a little wonky, I guess."

Kakashi had never heard Yamato speak at such length, and how Naruto was dragging this out of him was a mystery, but he wisely kept his own mouth shut. This was why he wasn't good with people. It took Naruto all of five minutes to do what would had taken Kakashi years.

"I don't know." Yamato sighed. "That doesn't make sense. They're going to want me to go into some program or something I know."

Naruto tilted his head to the side. "I mean it makes some kind of sense."

"I hope so."

Naruto leant back. "But I'm sorry. This sucks. And I really can smuggle you anything."

Kakashi watched, eyes soaking up one face and then the other. There was something about Naruto he could not put his finger on, and a darkness around Yamato. Like a bad photo filter maybe. The lack of sleep probably wasn't doing his eyes wonders but-

"I think you take everything too seriously," Obito said, raising a finger at him, "You'll be happier if you trust me."

For a moment he could almost taste it, the past and the way Obito had always been able to sit and listen to anyone for hours while Kakashi could barely eek out an awkward hello.

He excused himself for the rest room.

* * *

The true freak out didn't happen until he closed the door. And really who the hell was he, freaking out when nothing had happened to him?

The bathroom was gratefully empty, and Kakashi bolted the door. No need for the nurses to see him lose it too. Walked over to the dark tiled sink and looked in the mirror. Dark eyes, waxy skin, and the same clothes from yesterday.

"...something's not right about that Hatake boy."

The sight of his own tiredness made the feelings worse. He sat down on the floor, back to the sinks, and just focused on breathing, while memories played out against his will.

Kakashi had seen a dead body before but he didn't remember there being this much blood and who was screaming?

He didn't know how long he was there before he heard Naruto knocking on the door.

"Kakashi?"

Kakashi?

He took a deep breath.

He stood and opened the door. He had not been as ready as he'd hoped, if Naruto's concerned frown was any indication.

"Are you ok?"

"How do you know for sure when someone's cursed?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto always looked very serious when he was thinking. He paused now, eyes straining on a patch of empty air as he answered. "Well… it's a bit of a feeling, and a bit of a smell, and a bit of a...hm. Well it's different for everyone. For Sasuke, it's like a flock of black birds are constantly hanging onto him. For you it's," He squinted up at Kakashi. "It's like a snake? Or a scarf maybe. Sometimes I see it sort of fall off though."

"Fall off?"

"Like, little bits of it trail behind you."

"And Yamato?"

Here Naruto stopped short. His eyes softened. "Kakashi…"

"Is Yamato cursed?"

"No."

The relief that crashed over Kakashi literally knocked him back. He stepped back and didn't even care as his back met the sink and just let himself breathe. He grinned to himself, feeling bitter.

"So it's me then."

"Kakashi." Naruto was at his side, somehow, hands hovering but never touching. It was still that grey hand. Kakashi locked onto it. It was a better symbol of reality right then than anything else he could see so he looked at it and focused on bringing his breathing back to normal.

"It's got nothing to do with you. Some of us are unlucky."

What's the difference?

"Good question."

Had he said that out loud?

* * *

When Kakashi was upright and insistent that he was fine he dragged Naruto back to Yamato, who gave them a funny look but didn't say anything. It was late morning when a nurse came by and suggested Kakashi and Naruto grab lunch. Naruto looked utterly disheartened to be leaving Yamato's side, but the other man waved them both off with a smile.

"I'll be fine. They've got that big window for a reason."

Kakashi followed Naruto down the halls of the hospital. He appeared to know his way. "You should stay here. Yamato might need help getting home if they release him today."

"Not sure I'm good for his health right now."

Naruto whirled on him. "You are to take care of Yamato and that's an order! Consider it part of my plan if you have to. You're not leaving my Valentine alone in the hospital."

"Why are you here?"

"Hm?" Naruto spun a little, almost knocking into a nurse as they entered the large cafeteria. They grabbed a spot in a long, brisk moving line. "I'm here for Yamato obviously. Which, I may have to leave for work. But he can tell me if he wants anything ok? Give him my number?"

"I'm surprised he doesn't already have it."

Naruto looked sheepish, and accepted the plain looking hospital food from a worker who gave him a gruff "Naruto" and a nod. Kakashi grabbed a stale looking sandwich.

"I mean, we're Facebook friends."

"When do you start work?" Kakashi asked. They took a seat by a window and started eating. Naruto inhaled his rice..

"A couple hours. But I need time to walk and then to set up before opening so I'm probably going to have to go. Seriously, tell Yamato bye for me and if he needs anything-"

"What happened to the car?"

Naruto looked up from his food to frown. "It's Sakura's."

"I see."

"What?"

"Where did you get my car from?"

"A friend." Naruto shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Besides I hate driving it feels all awkward. And buses take all day to go anywhere. Way easier to walk."

Kakashi looked around the room. A quick scan of the place did not, in fact, make Sakura appear, though he rather was beginning to think he'd like to get to the bottom of what was going on between them. Naruto fell quiet, and the two of them finished their meals in a rushed pace.

Kakashi said goodbye to Naruto at the entrance to the cafeteria, and wandered his way to Yamato's room without Naruto's surety to guide him. When he got there, Yamato was talking to a doctor and looking worse for wear. Kakashi waved from the window.

Before he stepped inside he took out his phone, and sent Naruto a quick text with Yamato's contact information.

* * *

Yamato's good nature and aversion to placing any kind of strain on others was endearing right up until it got incredibly annoying. They kept him for one more day after he woke up, and then came the matter of releasing him.

The doctor did not want Yamato to go home alone. He wanted Yamato to consider checking into a proper mental health facility. Yamato kept trying to find ways around this until Kakashi finally stepped in.

"He can stay with me for now."

"You shouldn't worry yourself Kakashi."

Kakashi glared. "I have a couch."

The significance of that seemed lost on both the doctor and Yamato, but the doctor nodded. "That would be acceptable."

Yamato tried to protest again but the doctor jumped right in multiple times to tell them what a great idea it was and remind Yamato he was turning down treatment. There was a short exchange about getting Yamato to see a therapist ("I do doctor. One I was referred to by this hospital.") Yamato was as close to annoyed as Kakashi had ever seen him, and still he hesitated whenever he looked at Kakashi.

When Yamato was finally free Kakashi had been in the hospital almost two days straights. He had left briefly to grab fresh clothes and try to find the sequel to his book. Sadly the Barnes & Noble across the street did not carry it.

It was relief when the two men stepped into Kakashi's cool, dark, apartment.

"It's...nicer than I thought it would be," Yamato said, standing in the living room and refusing to move or touch anything.

Kakashi regarded the red plastered walls and awkwardly angled couch and sighed. "Thanks."

Yamato stuttered. "I mean, not that I didn't think it would be nice, just less...I don't know."

Yamato mumbled something and seemed to be caught up in staring at the deer head lamp. Kakashi sighed. "Come on."

He led Yamato to the bedroom and, after changing the sheets, went to the living room to give him some privacy.

Kakashi was sprawled on the couch thinking about how he was going to fix everything because it was apparently up to him now. He hadn't come to any conclusions when he heard Yamato call from the bedroom.

"Kakashi?"

Kakashi did not answer.

"Thanks."


	10. Fireworks

Kakashi sat at his desk googling "ways to help friends with depression" while trying to ignore the way Genma was watching him. He did not want to be at work, but Yamato had been insistent. He checked his phone again. Nothing.

The open floor layout did not provide the privacy he needed. Genma sat backwards in a desk chair, leaning his chin on the back rest and not even trying to pretend he wasn't watching Kakashi's every move. Kakashi half expected him to go for the Buddha board but he refrained. In a test of wills, however, Kakashi was always the more patient one. So he waited.

But Genma was good. The man chewed on a toothpick endlessly, and seemed content to watch Kakashi from afar.

The clock ticked towards noon.

Kakashi reviewed the paperwork for Dokku and decided he'd have to call the man's agent. Or send Danzo a firm email. He wasn't sure which, but they were worried about faulty craftsmanship in the home and Kakashi was worried about the five kids Dokku had been shepherding around. He also checked on his working case list. He'd need to start putting in more hours. Danzo was stacking up the files and spring would bring hail or flooding or both.

It seemed the boredom was too much for Genma. The man reached into his suit pocket and pulled a pack of cigarettes.

"Are you really going to do that in here?" Kakashi asked, not looking up from his screen.

"Have you heard from Yamato?"

That...had not been what Kakashi was expecting. "I'm sure he's fine."

Genma relaxed, sitting back and tucking the cigarettes back into his pocket. And Kakashi scowled because Genma was a sneaky asshole. "You haveheard from him. Good. I was getting worried. That kid's really quiet you know? Never can tell what's up with him."

"He's...sick." And Kakashi had never been this bad at lying so he stared at his computer with even more intensity hoping Genma would ignore him. Why had he offered any information?

"He's been hanging out with you too much then. Careful. Everyone here likes Yamato. Wouldn't want him catching whatever you have."

And Genma let that weird pseudo threat hang as he stood and swaggered away like he'd won something. Kakashi needed to find something to distract himself. Quickly.

* * *

Distraction came too quickly, in the form of Naruto, with Yamato securely in tow. Kakashi had walked down stairs to go grab a coffee from around the corner and the two were waiting in the lobby. Naruto had on his, by now signature, bright orange coat and a backpack for who knew what, and Yamato had been dressed in what Kakashi suspected were his old winter coat and hat.

"C'mon, do it for Yamato~" Naruto said. He held a flyer in his left hand and had Yamato looped around his right. Yamato stared resolutely at the ground.

"Maybe we should all just go home," Kakashi started. He watched Yamato carefully. The man was staring at the ground, but he made no efforts to leave. They had probably walked, and Yamato was probably still tired.

Naruto gripped the other man tightly. He shoved the flyer in Kakashi's face. "C'mon. Take your lunch break with us."

Kakashi read the flyer. 'Happy Lunar New Year!' it cried in bright gold and red, 'Celebrate downtown with free attractions and food'. Kakashi finally turned his eyes on Naruto. "It will take twenty minutes to even get there. I only have an hour for lunch."

"I'm sure you've earned more than enough vacation days."

"Danzo doesn't believe in this thing you call vacation," Kakashi said, looking back up towards his floor. Genma unsupervised for long could be dangerous to Kakashi's own mental health.

Yamato at last spoke up, "Actually, Kakashi is very often...out sick. I'm not sure he has any vacation days left to use."

Naruto looked delighted by this new information. "Really?"

"Fine," Kakashi said, snatching the flyer out of Naruto's hands, "But we're taking my car. I can't believe you made Yamato walk here."

He tried to pretend he hadn't already made up his mind the moment he saw them.

* * *

The festival was exactly as underwhelming as an event put on by a town in the middle of winter could hope to be. It was warming up, if only a little, but most decorations were soggy, and the most crowded activities were indoor raffles and restaurants taking advantage of the city's free marketing. Stands staffed by poor college students sold cold cakes and pastries, and red streamers flew valiantly above the street. The sidewalks were freshly shoveled and cleaned, and all of Main Street had been roped off so families could wander freely.

Naruto loved it.

He brought a backpack full of supplies: his change of clothes for the night shift, old notebooks from Jiraiya, water, snacks, cash. He stayed behind a couple of paces to watched as the other two wound their way through the crowd. Kakashi's grey coat and red scarf wrapped securely in place, Yamato's own drab coat and hat making them both oddly dreary in comparison to the brightly dressed families and decorations around them.

Kakashi was adorable. Truly that was the only word to describe him. He was tall, and Naruto now knew he looked even taller in his shoes and mussed up hair than he really was. People on the sidewalk ducked out of his way and when they didn't, they got a good look at his face and stumbled off anyways. He was never more than a pace away from Yamato, who seemed to be walking without purpose but would occasionally glance back to see if Kakashi was still there. He looked perhaps too tall for his own comfort but having seen now what he looked like without layers of coat and turtleneck covering every inch of him, Naruto had to take back his initial assessment.

Kakashi wasn't a pitbull, he was a greyhound. All lean muscle and angled face, and tall, graceful strides. And today he was on Yamato's heels like he thought the other man might collapse and it was adorable.

Step two of Naruto's carefully laid plan was to force Kakashi to see that even he could have fun. It would kill two birds in one stone by (hopefully) lifting some of that gloom off his shoulders and forcing the man into contact with lots of people who would not die or suffer terrible accidents. It was a pretty good plan, too, if he did say so himself. It had gotten a little wobbly due to Yamato, of course, but Yamato was hardly to blame for that and Naruto now had an even better way to coerce Kakashi into doing things.

Yamato did not, Naruto learned quickly, like being the center of attention.

And of course Kakashi knew this. And Naruto knew Kakashi knew he knew that. Perfect.

Naruto only had a moment to enjoy the relative calm of it all when a grey eye was turning on him.

Naruto smiled, and waved, but Kakashi looked suspicious so he jogged up to meet them, falling into pace beside them on the busy street.

"We missed the parade," Naruto told them, "That was this morning. But we still have time for the raffle, origami in the bookshop at two, there's a ramen eating contest at Ichiraku's, and then desert. The symphony has a free show and there will be lion dancers in the pavilion by the temple before dark. Oh and fireworks of course." He tried to remember all the things Jiraiya had dragged him to in the name of research and father-son bonding. Yamato and Kakashi did not look enthused. "What do you want to do first?"

Kakashi turned to Yamato. Yamato shrunk. "Ah, maybe something quiet? Origami?"

* * *

Origami was a mistake. Mostly because Naruto forgot to mention it was a children's' event. Three grown men sitting at a plastic fold out table, following along as an old librarian lady taught them how to make kimonos and cranes out of paper looked odd. It didn't help that the six year old across the table was much better at it, and kept throwing rhinestones at them.

Kakashi looked like he would snap, but somehow managed not to murder the toddler before his mother dragged him away from the 'weird old man'. Naruto was having a fucking blast.

"Never again." Kakashi pulled Naruto aside in the bathroom. Naruto bit back his sarcastic retort at the murderous look in Kakashi's eyes. "Never again Naruto."

Kakashi spent the rest of the activity browsing shelves in the the adult section of the Barnes & Noble while Naruto fought with the six year olds over the glitter.

He tried to keep their next activities to the adult level. He dragged them to music and martial arts showing in a back room of the bookstore. Kakashi looked bored out of his mind and Naruto half expected him to grab his book as middle schooler after middle schooler showed off. Yamato enjoyed it, though, and that was definitely a plus.

They walked out of the place and found the popup stands on the side of Main Street. There were books, cards, pastries. Naruto tucked away several greeting cards with picturesque mountainscapes for Sasuke and Sakura, whenever he saw them again. He found Kakashi lurking by the books under a blue tent.

"Looking for something?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi didn't pause. "I'm afraid what I'm looking for is not appropriate for children your age."

"Gross, Kakashi," Naruto said, and leant down to examine the shelf Kakashi was on. Trashy romance and detective fiction. "You read the Icha series right?"

Kakashi seemed tense, and if Naruto weren't standing so close he wouldn't have noticed, but he did. "What's wrong?"

"You read it too?" Kakashi asked the question like he thought Naruto might bolt.

Naruto laughed. "No." Kakashi looked up at him, but seemed disinclined to ask the question so Naruto kept going for him. "My godfather Jiraiya."

"He read them?"

"He wrote them."

Kakashi blinked, and then his hand went to his pocket and he pulled out the book in question. He flipped the offensive bright orange thing around in his hands. "The Toad Sage isn't a penname for a bunch of ghostwriters then."

"Nah, Jiraiya had illusions of grandeur. Do you want the sequel?"

"What?"

Naruto unslung his backpack and dug around in the mess of notebooks and manuscripts for the one he was looking for. He triumphantly emerged holding the self published, softbound, to his knowledge the only currently existing, edition of the Icha Icha sequel.

Kakashi didn't take it. Naruto shoved it at him a little harder. "Here. It's a New Year's present."

Kakashi took it with a gentleness that seemed a bit silly for something so trashy. "Thanks."

A wave of fondness washed over Naruto as he watched Kakashi flip through the only copy of a book that served only to be a memory for Naruto of other times. "I used to read them before he sent them to his editor you know."

"Seems a little inappropriate."

"It was the worst. He's a terrible writer."

Kakashi looked at him with an unreadable expression. "I like his work."

"Me too."

* * *

Kakashi passed the time at the festival mostly feeling like a parent to the overly loud overly bouncy Naruto, and the timid but still somehow easily losable Yamato. The two slipped away from him time and again drawn to completely separate things. Naruto was at the game stands, winning them stuffed animals, and Yamato he caught wandering towards the park to look at the art vendors.

He tried to keep as close to Yamato as possible without losing sight of Naruto, and sometimes doubled back to grab the blonde.

"But Kakashi I almost had it!" Naruto cried when Kakashi dragged him from a ring toss stand.

"I'm sure you did Naruto."

Kakashi got distracted only once, and for very good reason. A local car dealership, which according to banners was very openly sponsoring the festival, had a small show. There were several sports cars lined up and shining in the middle of the road while crowds of housewives and men with egos flittered around. There was a raffle to win some SUV being hosted according to the sign. Kakashi had never been a car guy, for obvious reason, but a thought not yet fully formed kept tugging at his mind. He circled the showing uselessly until someone in a suit spotted him.

"Hello, sir."

Kakashi cringed. Brown hair and a slimy smile, a man in a stiff black jacket and a customer service face walked up to him.

"Not interested," Kakashi said.

"You say that but-"

"Kakashi!" Kakashi thanked Naruto for existing mentally as he turned away from the sales rep, "Where've you been? Yamato and I are hungry-oh hey Kankuro."

"Naruto?" The brown haired guy's entire posture changed. He scowled, his entire salesman persona vanishing at the sight of Naruto charging towards them. He rolled his shoulders and tucked a hand into his pocket. "How's the party?"

"Gaara's got you working?"

"Yeah. Well, he's here too at least. You know how he is with crowds."

Naruto grabbed Kakashi by the arm. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat-"

"Hold on, Gaara will want to see you- Gaara!"

Kankuro turned and scanned the crowd as he gestured for them to wait. Naruto was yanking on Kakashi's arm a little too hard now. "Let's go."

"Now, now, Naruto, don't be rude," Kakashi said, and enjoyed the glare as Naruto sighed and hung his head in defeat.

"I hope you enjoy this," he muttered.

A red head approached them from deep within the crowd. Like Kankuro he dressed in a dark black coat. His face was flat, even when he caught sight of Naruto, and his bangs were combed down over his head.

Gaara did not smile, but there was something familiar in his mannerism, and his eyes were trained only on Naruto. "Naruto. How are you?"

"Good," Naruto said.

"How's retirement treating you?"

Naruto scrunched up his nose in that way only he could do. "I'm too young to be retired."

Gaara smiled. "And how's the arm?"

Naruto made a big show of windmilling his right arm as best he could. "Good as new, see?"

"How's the car?"

Naruto's motions stuttered a bit at that. Kakashi elbowed him slightly in the back. "Gr-great. It's great. Runs fine."

"Makes a weird noise sometimes when you go to fast." Kakashi added.

Gaara looked at them both. And Kakashi knew Gaara knew. He had to.

"Who's this?" He asked.

"Oh, right, Gaara, this is Kakashi he's a friend from...work."

"It's good to meet you. You work for the dealership?" Kakashi asked, holding out a hand.

Gaara stared at him. Kankuro suddenly seemed very uncomfortable with the entire situation and Naruto was humming with nervous energy. After a little too long, Gaara simply nodded at him.

"I own it." That explained a lot. "You can bring the car in if you want. I'll have my people look at it. Naruto's mechanic isn't very good."

They exchanged a few more goodbyes, Naruto throwing a lot of effort into getting them excused as quickly as possible. As they left, Gaara called after them.

"Might be meeting up with Bee in a few weeks if you're interested."

"Sure thing," Naruto said, and dragged Kakashi from the most fascinating encounter he'd had with Naruto's friends since Sasuke.

A strange mood settling between them as they walked back to find Yamato. Kakashi decided to leave it alone, even as Naruto fiddled with his right hand more than was necessary.

* * *

They stopped by Ichiraku's, and Kakashi and Yamato hid in a corner booth while Naruto fought for his title of Ramen King. Teuchi kindly saw to Kakashi and Yamato (everything on the house for Naruto's friends) and Naruto took his seat at a long table set up near the bar.

Naruto had just taken his seat when he spotted Choji.

"Choiji!"

"Naruto!"

Choji crushed him in a hug and Shikamaru, never far behind, grinned, and nodded over at Yamato's booth.

"You brought your friends."

"They're here to witness my inevitable victory over Choji," Naruto said.

They both looked good. Choji regaled Naruto with all the gossip he'd missed. Kiba got a raise, Sai had a student art show next week and they were all invited, he himself had just gotten a job as a soccer coach over at the local public school, and Shikamaru would be graduating with his master's in Classics next semester and was already on track to go into the PhD program if he wanted to.

"That's amazing," Naruto said. "Will you do it?"

Shikamaru looked annoyed. "There's no point. Why bother?"

"Of course he will," Choji said, and leant forward to whisper, "Temari is looking at out of state programs, but they're both signed up for Professor Baki's trip out to Egypt over the summer."

"So when's the wedding?"

Shikamaru griped at them, but not with quite the vigor he used to. Naruto took a seat at the table with him and Choji as the competition began on Teuchi's mark.

* * *

The next attraction was far and away Naruto's favorite. He could hardly stay still as he led Kakashi and Yamato a little past Main Street to the grocery store, and then past that to an alleyway tucked between the back of the store and an old abandoned office building.

Jiraiya had taken him here the first year they had lived together.

He had been twelve. And Naruto, Naruto had been such an angry kid at twelve. Out to prove something to the world, and to himself. He fought every teacher and counselor on his way out the door. It was miraculous Jiraiya had put up with him the way he did.

So at twelve he came home from a fight with the gym teacher over the soccer team and tryouts to Jiraiya with his coat, standing in the doorway.

At the time Naruto had thought they were driving to another parent teacher conference, when they drove into town. Instead they parked on the street, and walked into a steep, claustrophobic alley. Black gates hung open before a great fountain, and a rug had been thrown down on the concrete so visitors could sit and meditate. Vendors lined the sides of the alley. And, leering over it all, was the largest statue Naruto had ever seen in his life. Made of jade and painted gold, with one hand held in the air, it was almost tacky if it weren't for the residing monks at the front speaking earnestly about peace and personal responsibility.

Naruto spent more time inside, where there were fortunes, a jewelry shop, and a private room where Jiraiya first taught him to meditate.

At twelve, this place had been his favorite place in the world.

Naruto dragged Yamato and Kakashi down the same alley. Older now, but not changed. He nodded his greetings to the statue that loomed over them.

"Here." He stopped by the fountain, dipping his hands quickly in cold water. "I want to show you guys something."

Kakashi lingered by the gates, and Naruto watched him curiously. There was a darkness about him that shifted like a scarf around his head, and then vanished from Naruto's ability to sense it as he approached the fountain.

"I don't go to temple much," Kakashi said, and a gloved hand skimmed the water. Darkness flickered in and out of Naruto's sight.

"Neither do I," Naruto said, "But Jiraiya wrote a lot here. Wash your hands."

Kakashi took off his gloves and obligingly dunked them in the fountain. Naruto watched as for the first time the weird feeling that lingered over Kakashi whenever he looked at the other man jumped away.

Naruto dragged them through a maze of rooms. The temple looked like it was actually a remodelled gym, with large, low ceilinged rooms full of matts and incense. Naruto knew it well. He saw Chiriku talking at the head of a class, and waved as he led Kakashi and Yamato to the main hall.

The main hall was a large, long room, lined on either side with poster plastered poles. The walls were full of slots, and people who donated could take a number and grab fortunes from the corresponding location. Everything was crowded today. Every family and their friends wandering aimlessly and laughing as they read their little slips of paper out loud.

"Fortunes, really?" Kakashi asked.

"They have to make money somehow."

So Naruto went, dropped a coin for each of them in the basket, and grabbed their numbers.

They huddled by a pole covered in ads for singing and martial arts classes, and read their fortunes to themselves.

"A year of good luck," Yamato said, holding his up.

"Trying new things will lead to successful career change," Kakashi said, monotone.

Yamato peered over his shoulder. "Can we trade. I want that one."

Kakashi smiled and handed his over. And Naruto watched as they spoke quietly, and laughed over the poorly written, grammatically incorrect way in which the fortunes predicted they would both find love, and that Kakashi's fortune claimed that the way to riches was to quit his job now.

"Not before hail season, I don't think so," Kakashi said.

"I don't know. I think I might quit." Yamato smiled and tucked the paper away into his pocket. "You're awful quiet Naruto, what did yours say?"

Naruto blushed and quickly scanned the paper in his hand. "You face a time of deep trouble and hardship, everything you worked… hold on, I'm going to get another one."

"I don't think that's how it works," Kakashi said, and reached for Naruto's fortune. Naruto stumbled back, but Kakashi was faster. He snatched out of his hands, reading it with glee in his eyes.

"Tough luck, it seems."

Naruto stuck out his tongue and reached for his wallet. "I'm getting another one anyways. Jiraiya used to help them write these things. Mean."

But he didn't care that much. Not really. Naruto, all things considered, had some pretty awesome luck, and he felt sure of that as he watched Yamato and Kakashi laze about the pavilion waiting on him to grab a new fortune.

* * *

Eventually darkness settled over the crowded streets. Lights went up, lanterns and spotlights filling the chilly air as temperatures dipped. Naruto cursed that today had been one of those days where he forgot to bring his hat, and sunk into his coat as best he could as his breath misted in front of his nose.

The snow was melting and dirty, kids left streaking muddy footprints along the sidewalk. Yamato and Kakashi looked just as cold and put out as Naruto felt, but the crowds of people were drifting down Main Street towards the park, and Naruto urged them on.

"Last thing of the night, I promise," Naruto said. He could remember being cold and miserable ten years ago too.

Kakashi grumbled, but followed, and Yamato followed him as Naruto guided them through the throngs of people.

The park was pitch black, covered in snow, and not nearly large enough for the crowd gathered. Naruto found them a good spot huddling under a large tree towards the back of the crowd. In the dark, the large square public park was just a patch of muddy snow, and the gazebo at its center was obscured by the heads of hundreds of people. There were no lights in the park but what spilled over from the streetlights, and the crowd roared with laughter and chatting while the three waited.

Despite two layers of socks, Naruto's toes were freezing, and he bounced back and forth to keep himself feeling less like an ice cube. Kakashi checked his watch, and Yamato leant against the tree, content to close his eyes while the world turned around him.

The first firework went off with a crack.

Naruto's eyes didn't leave the night sky for the first twenty minutes as the crowd cheered and then fell into hushed tones. Red and gold danced across the sky, blooming flowers and bright stars striking out. As soon as one faded, another would burst out in it's place in the shadow of a deafening crack.

The show was halfway over when he felt movement beside him. Kakashi had left Yamato by the tree and joined Naruto a few paces away in the snow. A firework lit up and for a moment Kakashi was painted in bright red and gold like something out of a movie and Naruto forgot how to breathe.

He leaned over, mouth to Naruto's ear. "Thanks for today."

Naruto nodded, because he was an idiot, and also what did he say now?

Kakashi smiled and Naruto remembered a couple nights before, standing in Kakashi's doorway making an idiot of himself.

"It's...nothing." Naruto meant to look somewhere else but another firework went off and Kakashi was smiling as his hair and face were lit white and Naruto realized that the shadow that lurked in Kakashi's presence wasn't there at the moment.

Kakashi looked at him. "Something wrong Naruto?"

Naruto looked away, but he leaned towards the other man until their shoulders bumped.

"No."

They stayed like that, leaning against each other, until the fireworks went out.

* * *

Kakashi drove them all home, and he did so with an ease in his posture that Naruto had never seen.

When Kakashi was at ease, he took up even more space than his imposing height already demanded. Languid, a little bit all over the place, Kakashi never left Naruto's side in the time it took them to walk from the park to his car, and maybe it was in Naruto's head but two grown men didn't need to be bumping into each other so much.

Naruto felt light headed.

Kakashi's arm hung around the headrest of the passenger seat. Yamato sat in the back, already half asleep. Naruto almost felt bad for keeping him on his feet so long. He looked over at Kakashi, who pulled out of the parking lot with ease and seemed content to stare at the road while Naruto studied his face instead.

And Naruto studied it hard because it felt like he was seeing it for the first time.

Kakashi was built out of flat planes and angles that caught the light when his nose wasn't buried in a scarf.

Naruto felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

He didn't even think as he reached into his pocket out of habit and checked his notifications.

Sasuke.

He closed his eyes, and tried to get back that fuzzy warm feeling he'd had just a moment ago.


	11. Buzzed

Kakashi woke up sweating for the third time that week with the memory of blue eyes fading too rapidly to keep up with the morning chill. He threw off his blanket and got into the shower. His body woke up slowly, and protested the quick temperature changes as Kakashi got in and out of the water in under five minutes. He brushed back his hair and gave himself a long hard look in the mirror.

"You idiot." His scarred reflection offered him a crooked grin. Kakashi shook his head and started his day.

It could have been far far worse. If Kakashi had to be- well if he had to have such an... infatuation with someone then Naruto was a good choice. Naruto was nice, and he was young, and he probably wouldn't ever think to think of Kakashi like that. If he was half as dense as Obito had been-

He shook off that thought and went to the kitchen and threw open the cabinets looking for a clean coffee mug. He had mugs, plural now. Thanks to Naruto. He found one in the wrong cabinet above the sink and decided that being late to work was worth having real coffee instead of the instant stuff. He sat down and waited.

His entire house reminded him of Naruto now, with the red and the couch. Which was a problem.

After the festival last week Naruto had vanished. No texts or calls. And Yamato after a couple days had excused himself back to his own place. Kakashi felt torn on that front too. Part of him wanted to keep an eye on the other man but he did not trust his luck to hold out while Naruto was away.

Kakashi looked around at the empty plant filled living room. When did everything get complicated?

* * *

Yamato was at work. Kakashi nodded to him as he took a seat at their shared desk. He flipped open his book (another little marker of Naruto) and pretended to read while he opened his case list from Danzo.

Yamato peered up from his side of the desk with an unimpressed expression. "Like the job that much?"

"I live for my work, Yamato."

Yamato scowled, then with a smile. "I turned in my two week's notice."

Kakashi hoped he didn't look as blindsided as he felt, because Yamato looked far too pleased and really it was unfair of him. "Really?"

Yamato nodded. That seemed to be all that was going to be said on the matter until- "Danzo might end up dumping you with my workload soon. That's all."

"Guess I'll be on the road soon."

Yamato didn't seem to think that needed to be elaborated on at all and Kakashi found the mental calculus of his life was now dealing with the two pronged problem of Yamato no longer sharing his desk and the work that was sure to come his way. Either way he looked at it made him feel cold.

He had liked sharing his desk with Yamato.

He checked his phone absently for text messages. Nothing.

* * *

He made a point for the rest of the day of spending too much time bothering (derailing) Yamato. He stole his paperwork, logged him out of the computer when he wasn't looking, stole his lunch. It was petty, but Yamato seemed to find it all rather amusing and Kakashi figured he owed the man about five years worth of deskmate bonding.

They ended the day with an argument over whether or not to get a celebratory dinner, which Kakashi felt was necessary. He thought he had Yamato halfway convinced too, when they were stopped at the door to the building.

"Good evening, Kakashi. Care to join us for a fine evening of drinks and revelry?" Guy asked, with no sense of personal space or timing. He jumped into their conversation by trying to pull Kakashi into a one armed hug, Lee hot on his tail with a bag full of paperwork.

"An excellent idea," Lee said, coming to a stop before Yamato, "I heard we have much to celebrate."

"Er, actually-" Yamato was already trying to duck away.

"We'd love to," Kakashi said, dropping an arm on Yamato's shoulders and pulling the other man towards them. If he had to put up with the little monsters so did Yamato. "Yamato here is, in fact, celebrating his two weeks."

"No fucking way." The group turned to see Genma coming down the stairs, cigarette already halfway to his mouth. "Well, congratu-fucking-lations, Yamato, my man. You really did it. Fuck this place am I right? And did I hear that right or is Kakashi Hatake coming to join us lowly plebeians for drinks and merry making tonight?"

"Try not to make a complete ass of yourself," Kakashi said.

"Right back at you. Shall we be going then? Man of the hour?"

"I…" Yamato looked slowly around at the faces of his office mates. "I'm not sure."

"He'll come."

Kakashi let the others wander off to their cars, keeping Yamato with him until they were out of earshot. "I'll buy you endless potato skins and sneak you club soda."

"Make it fries and challenge Guy to a drinking contest and you have yourself a deal."

Kakashi stumbled and stepped back to look at Yamato. Yamato continued to level at him an unreadable look and Kakashi sighed. "Guess me and my liver ought to say our goodbyes then."

* * *

The bar was loud. Kakashi remembered going there back when he first joined out of obligation to some old coworkers, and it had not changed much since then. The Hidden Leaf Lounge was warm, filled with more men than women, and played the kind of oldies songs even Kakashi didn't like. Yamato was no better in a bar with old coworkers than he was in a hospital. He sat straight as a rail on his chair while Genma tried to get him to commiserate his misery with very loud complaining. Naruto would have liked it here, Kakashi's brain told him.

"Kakashi!" Guy was also loud.

"I believe you'd had enough, sir!" Lee was probably louder.

Or maybe, possibly, Kakashi was drunk.

Guy and Lee collapsed in a pile of loud, indiscernible babbling two chairs down and Kakashi decided that perhaps he was drunk. But they were drunk too so...yeah.

"How you holding up there?" Genma asked.

Was he smoking? Kakashi hated that. "Fine…"

"Maybe I should take him home?" Yamato asked.

"Are you kidding?" Genma said, smirking while he lorded his weird normalness over Kakashi. "This is great. Let him dry out a bit here."

Yamato was grabbing Kakashi and-oh. Kakashi had been falling.

"M'fine, Yamato. Just uh, let me sit here?"

Yamato looked at him and there was real amusement in his face for once. His mouth creased in a smile. "You won, you know."

"Heh. Good."

"I've never seen him this drunk," Genma said, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bar counter, "And back when we first got hired there were these old guys, Hanzo and Homura and Kagami and Torifu, fuck, they used to take us new guys out and drink us under the table. You weren't really in till you passed out drunk on your ass in the bathroom back there."

"Pleasant," Yamato said, clearly disgusted.

Kakashi vaguely recalled what Genma was talking about. "Hanzo was a fucking...he was bad."

Genma laughed. "This fucker right here, he drank all night with Hanzo back then, it must've been ten years ago, and still was walking straight when he got through."

Kakashi raised his head from where it had been resting on the bar. When had he done that. "I cut a deal with the bartender."

Genma dropped his new cigarette. "Oh, c'mon, you're kidding me? You tell me this now? Fuck you Hatake."

Kakashi laughed into his arm, giving up on sitting up for the rest of the night. "She was cute."

"Damn right she was. Ruined all our chances with your stupid pretty face." Genma said, lighting his cigarette and settling into glaring. "And here I thought you really beat Hanzo. You cheating son of a bitch."

Genma softened a bit, around the edges. Or maybe Kakashi's vision was going blurry. "Hey, did you ever get that present?"

"What?"

"From that kid."

"Oh, Naruto. He gave me a lot of flowers. It doesn't matter."

Genma laughed.

* * *

In the end Yamato prevented Genma from feeding Kakashi any more drinks than he already had. Instead he found water repeatedly shoved in his face by Lee at the behest of Yamato. Guy seemed completely gone, far as he could tell, and while Kakashi repeatedly insisted he was fine and yes he could walk home, he found himself leaning against Genma by the end of the evening.

"Go on home and celebrate your freedom," Genma said, and he was practically hauling Kakashi up. "I'll keep this one alive. It isn't the first time we've had to do this, is it Kakashi?"

"Don't tell him all my secrets," Kakashi slurred a bit, but managed to pull out of Genma's grip. The world wobbled a bit.

"Are you sure?" Yamato asked.

"It's fine," Kakashi said. There was no need to ruin this for Yamato.

Genma lugged Kakashi towards his car and Kakashi tried his best to help fumble himself into the passenger seat. They drove in silence and Kakashi stared at the passing darkness outside while waiting for the alcohol to wear off. Being drunk was exhausting.

"You know if I didn't know any better," Genma said, not looking at him, "I'd say something's up with you."

"I have no idea what you mean," Kakashi said.

They pulled into his apartment after Kakashi lost count of the streetlights. He felt slightly more sober, or perhaps just less delirious, and decided in a show of the best judgment he'd had all night, to let Genma help him to his apartment.

"You know, much as you're a fatass, it's good to have you around," Genma said, "Gonna miss Yamato after all this."

Kakashi mumbled into his shoulder as they climbed the stairs and ventured down the hallway. When he finally collapsed in his home he needed to sleep and maybe...maybe eat something. He probably had some ramen left from when Naruto was over.

"Well, shit." Genma stopped, and Kakashi stumbled, saved at the last moment by Genma's firm grip.

Down the hallway in the dark light of his front door sat Naruto. He could tell because no one else wore orange so casually.

Naruto looked up at the both of them but Kakashi struggled to make out his face. "Kakashi?"

"And Genma. Remember me?"

"Yeah…" Naruto approached. "What happened?"

"He drank too much." Genma tilted his head, considering Naruto carefully. "What are you doing here?"

And Kakashi remembered Naruto was a terrible liar, and Naruto stuttered out that he had just been waiting for Kakashi because...because...

Genma shoved Kakashi at Naruto and he tried not to fall like a rock but, well, his coordination was not so great and Naruto caught him despite his unpreparedness. Kakashi resigned himself to leaning against the young man.

"Kakashi you dog," Genma said, already lighting a cigarette.

"You shouldn't smoke," Kakashi said, even as his alcohol logged brain screamed at him that he was missing something obvious. "You'll get lung cancer and die. Like Hayate."

"Yeah. He's way gone. Take care of him, eh Naruto?" And with a really bad wink and a wave he vanished down the stairs.

Kakashi sank further down in Naruto's arms. The other man sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"

Kakashi shrugged, and decided it was better to let Naruto handle all of this anyways.

"Where are your keys?"

"Pocket."

"Can you get them?"

"You get them."

Naruto stared at Kakashi with his pretty blue eyes and oh, this reminded Kakashi of something, a dream he was sure. Naruto sighed and reached for his pocket.

"Got you," Kakashi said smugly, grabbing Naruto's hand and trapping him there. He was so close now. And warm.

"Kakashi," Naruto said, "Stop."

"Why?"

Naruto didn't answer and instead pried Kakashi's hand away. He slipped his hand into Kakashi's pocket and grabbed his keys before Kakashi could catch him, and manhandled Kakashi towards the door.

"Don't you like older men?" Kakashi asked and he really needed to shut up.

Naruto smiled though, even as he had to support Kakashi on his bad side while he opened the door (barely) with his left hand. "Why, whatever would make you ask that, Kakashi?"

Kakashi grumbled instead of answering. Naruto laughed. He helped Kakashi through the door and into the apartment, kicking off his shoes, and then Kakashi's, and half dragging him to his room.

"Tell you what," Naruto said, was saying, as Kakashi crawled into bed needing less help now. "If you remember this tomorrow I might just tell you."

"Remember what?"

Naruto leaned in and for a moment Kakashi thought he was going to kiss him. He pulled back just as Kakashi leaned forward.

"Jackass," Kakashi said.

"Go to sleep, old man."

He drifted off before he could muster up the energy to fight him over the 'old man' comment.

* * *

Kakashi woke up with a headache. He groaned.

"Morning."

He opened his eyes to blue and blonde and sun and- maybe he could just throw himself out the window? That seemed like the best course of action.

Naruto sat over him, seemingly not at all disturbed by the lack of personal space between them, in a white t-shirt and jeans. Kakashi was still in his damn button up shirt and and slacks from the day before. Naruto had been considerate enough to removes his shoes and tie but honestly.

"If you were just going to lurk over me like a creep you could have at least changed me into something comfortable."

"Oh, Kakashi, we've talked about this. If you want me to take off your pants you have to earn it."

Kakashi threw a pillow at Naruto but nothing seemed to quell the blonde's spirits. "I don't remember that conversation. Anything else I should know?"

"You mean you don't remember last night?"

Well, Kakashi remembered Genma, and Naruto, and some particularly dumb comments about older men. And...

"Nothing happened," he said, sure of it. Naruto beamed at him like that was great news and Kakashi gave up. Let the blonde be stupid, he decided.

He shuffled away from Naruto, and out of bed, and towards the shower and he was going to need half a bottle of Advil for his headache. Naruto sat on his bed, looking comfortable just staring out the window and Kakashi looked away before his mind got any stupid ideas.

When Kakashi stepped out of the shower in into more comfortable clothes, Naruto was still sitting in his house. He'd moved to the kitchen bar, and the morning light drifting through his windows made everything seem surreal. Honestly Naruto dressed down in his house on a random morning was something more likely to happen in Kakashi's dreams. He watched Naruto from the doorway, towel drying his hair if only so his hands had something to do, while he tried to figure out where the blonde had even come from. Had he missed a text or something?

Kakashi went to get his coffee. The morning felt...serene. He hated to ruin it by talking. Naruto had none of those reservations. He smiled as Kakashi entered the kitchen and started running like a motor.

"Sorry for staying the night. I didn't want to walk home and someone needed to make sure you didn't puke and die. I got the coffee started. I think. Also I'm glad you're hanging out with your work friends, they seem nice. Genma's great."

Kakashi poured his coffee carefully.

"I'll assume Yamato's doing fine. I mean, I texted him a couple days ago because he mentioned he was leaving. Honestly I don't understand why you aren't roommates that seems like it would save money."

Kakashi tried not to feel hurt Naruto didn't text him as he set down his coffee and pulled a microwavable breakfast sandwich out of the freezer. Naruto watched with disgust.

"Those things are so unhealthy. You need real food." Oh the irony.

Kakashi sighed as he pushed the button on the microwave and watched his processed meat puck defrost.

"Kakashi." Naruto had moved to stand right behind him and Kakashi jumped. He spun and slapped a hand over the other's mouth. Naruto tried to keep talking and wound up gagging and scowling through Kakashi's hand. He settled on glaring up at the man.

"Naruto, dear, as much as I love hearing your voice, if you could wait until after I finish my coffee that would be much appreciated."

Naruto grinned at him. The microwave beeped but neither of them moved.

"What?" Kakashi asked, backing away as much as the small space allowed and freeing Naruto.

"Nothing, you're just…" Naruto looked him up and down and Kakashi gave up because honestly, he couldn't be bothered in the morning.

And besides, he had always been weak when it came to pretending he was anything other than completely suppliant to anything Naruto could ask him. Naruto didn't need to know that, but it would be exhausting for Kakashi to pretend otherwise, so instead he grabbed Naruto by the shoulders (the way Naruto was often fond of doing) and walked him back to a chair.

"Stay," he said, and lingered too long before he got his breakfast from the microwave.

* * *

"You're not going to ask why I'm here?" Naruto asked Kakashi mid bite of sandwich and long after the coffee was gone. Naruto had seemed pleased just to sit around and look radiant in the morning sunlight, so Kakashi was a bit off guard when the question came tumbling out.

Kakashi looked up, and swallowed. "I assumed you were a figment of my demented imagination sent to torment me."

Naruto scowled. "Rude."

"All right, then, if you are real, why are you here?"

Naruto smiled, his sad smile, and looked down at his hands which rested on the counter. He played with the prosthetic. If Kakashi turned his head just right he could almost read the silver chicken scratch scribbled across the black plastic of his forearm. They looked like signatures.

"I was wondering actually, if you didn't mind, if you could come with me today. Because you have a car."

Kakashi sighed. He was supposed to get on the road today anyways. What Danzo did not know wouldn't kill him, though it would perhaps get Kakashi fired.

"Come with you where?"

"To get Sasuke."

* * *

Naruto was a surprisingly silent car companion. He settled into the passenger seat of Kakashi's car and stared out the window. Kakashi followed his simple, but brief directions to take the highway north and two hours in Naruto still said nothing.

They stopped for lunch at a Sonic. Naruto requested two orders of onion rings. Kakashi had questions, sure, but he also tended to retreat into silence when he didn't know what he was doing, so they did not speak as they ate.

At last, two more hours down the road and close to the state border, Naruto shot up straight in his seat.

"Here," he said.

"What?"

"Exit here!"

Kakashi veered right and off the freeway. A sign on the side of the road that looked like it hadn't been updated in ages claimed the town was home to the Middle Grade Girl's Cross Country Champions. There was more mud and ice than snow, and Kakashi continued down a two lane road until a few stout buildings rose up from the desolate nothing.

"Keep going," Naruto said, "It's at the edge of town on the right. You'll see it."

"See what?" Kakashi asked, peering around a bit skeptical that anything worth seeing would be there.

"Trailer park."

Kakashi found the park just as Naruto said. Next to a broken down and abandoned Walgreens, with a half falling chain link fence, it looked about as safe as a back alley. They parked in the Walgreens parking lot and Naruto jumped out of the car.

"You can stay in the car."

Kakashi took one look at the place and knew he'd be glued to Naruto's side. The logical side of him, of course, realized Naruto could probably handle it but then he thought about Sasuke, human rain cloud, and decided he would follow Naruto anyways.

They walked through trash and uncut grass, through a hole in the fence, and into the assemblage of half falling apart trailer cars and mobile units. People gave them a wide berth, glaring from a distance or making a point to ignore them, but Naruto seemed unconcerned. There were dozens of stray dogs running around, and the sounds of people arguing and music blaring made the entire thing feel more like a movie set than people's lives.

Kakashi remembered times going into homes where the water had been shut off, or days spent at schools where there were holes in the floor that they didn't have the money to fix. Unlucky kids ended up in places where everything was broken and everyone needed food. Hayate had always had more of a handle on it, always seemed more welcome than Kakashi when they had showed up on another family's doorstep to tell them they were legally obligated to send their child to school.

"That one," Naruto said, pointing at a trailer. Nothing about it seemed notable or distinct from the others. Music blared out the screen door and paint peeled off the side of it.

"Charming place your friend Sasuke's got here."

Naruto glared and Kakashi shut his mouth.

A screaming blonde haired man stumbled out of the door.

"Fuck you!" He screamed. Red faced, he turned and saw them standing there. "Aw, fuck, Hidan!"

A grey haired man leant out the door. "Fuck off Deidara. We told you- oh come on!"

The other man stepped out of the trailer and both men approached Naruto, neither looking please. The blonde was tall, and lean, with long scraggly hair and a stain covered t-shirt. The grey haired man was thin to the bones and despite trying not to be judgmental, Kakashi knew he had to be on something to look like that. Wasting away, corpse walking.

"What do you want fuck lord?" the blonde asked.

Naruto had stopped before he and Kakashi got too close, and stood with his hands in his pockets. "I'm just here to pick up Sasuke's things. Same old."

The grey haired man rolled his eyes. "How many times we gotta tell you to fuck off man? Sasuke's a big boy."

Naruto held up his phone. "He asked me to come by and pick up his things. You got a problem with that take it up with him."

The blonde squinted up at the phone and scowled. "If you steal anything, we're coming for you, you know that."

The blonde grabbed the grey haired man and they stumbled off. "We will. Believe me we will."

They both looked a bit out of it, and Kakashi stepped aside to let them pass. When they were far enough away, Naruto sighed.

"Nice friends." Kakashi said. Then mentally kicked himself.

Naruto started towards the door. "They're Sasuke's brother's old crowd."

Kakashi nodded and followed. The entire interior was exactly as disgusting as he thought it would be. Covered in trash and what Kakashi decided to pretend was just cooking supplies, Naruto stepped through it all to the back of the cramped trailer.

"Sasuke didn't mention a brother."

"Yeah well," Naruto lifted an old mattress at the back of the trailer up, to reveal a hole cut in the bottom. He yanked out a black plastic bag and dropped the mattress with a thud. "He wouldn't. He's in jail."

"For?"

Naruto slung the bag over his shoulder. "Murder. Come on. Let's get Sasuke."

They left the trailer. Still something wasn't right. Kakashi felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He moved closer to Naruto and started looking around.

Everyone was gone, he realized.

* * *

Sasuke was waiting for them on the curb of the only fast food joint in town, a decrepit Burger King. He looked like hell. Miles from the park, hunched over. Kakashi had pulled up at Naruto's direction but hardly recognized the boy. Sasuke's hair was longer, his face gaunt, and his clothes torn. He wordlessly let Naruto shuffle him into the back of the Camry.

Naruto treated him like glass, and Sasuke said nothing as Kakashi drove while trying not to comment.

"We saw Deidara and Hidan," Naruto said, "They look messed up."

Sasuke shrugged. "Sasori's gone."

Kakashi didn't know what that meant, but it meant something, because Naruto nodded and averted his eyes.

"You call Sakura yet?"

Sasuke hunched in on himself even more.

Kakashi had, of course, a million and two questions, but mainly he kept his eyes on Naruto. Naruto who looked so tired, Naruto who caught him looking and smiled. He watched the way Sasuke sullenly stared at his own shoes and decided he really did not understand what Naruto saw in him.

"They helped me talk to Itachi," Sasuke said at last. Naruto spun in his chair.

"That's-That's good, right?"

Sasuke looked at Naruto with a strange, glazed expression on his face, but didn't answer.

* * *

When they got back to Naruto's place, it took all of Kakashi's willpower to say nothing as he helped Naruto carry Sasuke and his things inside. Sasuke seemed to stumble a lot more and Kakashi couldn't figure if it was his health or his coordination at fault but he kept quiet. Naruto's apartment was exactly what he expected. Small, almost a studio, decorated with paintings and drawings and notes from friends. A small balcony full of plants. His fridge was covered in alphabet magnets and Sasuke was immediately sent to the shower.

Kakashi took an uneasy seat on the balcony. Maybe he should have taken up smoking. It seemed like the place someone would smoke. He noticed an ashtray on the railing despite being almost certain Naruto didn't smoke.

Naruto joined him, collapsing almost as soon as he closed the sliding glass door behind them.

"Tough day?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He looked over at Kakashi, and smiled. "Yeah. but I think it'll be ok now."

Kakashi decided not to ask, and examined the ashtray a bit more closely. The silence was not uncomfortable, exactly, but Naruto fidgeted.

"Itachi and Sasuke were very close before, you know."

"Murder?"

"Yeah."

"It's Shikamaru's." Naruto pointed to the ashtray, "He smokes. And the drawings are all Sai's, he's in art school."

Kakashi nodded, accepting the redirection for what it was.

Naruto did not seem content, however. After a few moments of silence, he sighed, and his entire posture wilted. "Who am I kidding. Sasuke and I, well. Sasuke got into college, but he was all sorts of fucked up cause of his family situation, so when I joined the army after school he dropped out to follow me. Because he's an idiot. Obviously. He's going to be okay now though. This was just. This was something. But he talked to Itachi so."

"You think it's good he talked to his brother. The murderer?"

Naruto looked deeply upset at this. "He went to jail for murder, it doesn't mean he's guilty."

Suddenly a lot of things clicked into place. "Oh."

"Yeah."

They sat there, and the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, casting long shadows on the balcony. Kakashi replayed some of what he knew about the man in front of him, and about Sasuke and Sakura.

"Isn't it funny though. I mean. I got paid to do a lot of things. Some great things. But I also got paid to sometimes put bullets into people so the guys in charge wouldn't have to," Naruto gave a humourless laugh, "But it's Itachi who's in jail, while Hidan and Deidara and that entire gang blow Sasuke and Itachi's money on drugs and lottery tickets. How's that for fair?"

It was the only time Kakashi had ever seen Naruto look bitter. Or even upset.

"I don't have any regrets about it," Naruto said.

Kakashi reached out a hand, placed it on his shoulder. It was a weak show of support, even he could admit that, but Naruto broke out of his strange mood if only for a moment to look at him.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it," Kakashi said, and stuffed his hands in his pockets so he didn't look like a nervous buffoon.

Naruto suddenly threw himself at him and Kakashi stumbled as he was pulled into a hug.

* * *

It took several hours, but at long last Sasuke was dressed and fed and looked slightly less dead. Naruto did not stop fussing.

"You need to eat more vegetables."

"..."

"I have tomatoes. Be nice to Sakura. She's been worried. Did you grab your clothes already? I ran them through the wash."

"Naruto," Kakashi put, what he hoped, was a calming hand on the blonde's shoulder as they walked towards the car. Sasuke watched them from under dark bangs.

Naruto shut up and grinned. "Sorry. I get nervous."

Sasuke pushed past them and got into the car.

"Is he okay?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto shrugged. "It's like you said. He needs therapy."

The drive to Sakura's apartment was surprisingly short. They parked on the street and sat there for several silent minutes.

"Should you go in first?" Naruto asked Sasuke.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and got out of the car.

"Hey!" Naruto tumbled after him.

Kakashi got out and waited by the car. He watched the two disappear into the building. It was dark now. He waited for about thirty minutes. Then twenty more. At last he told himself that if he didn't hear anything in another ten minutes he would leave.

He stayed another twenty before driving himself home.


	12. Present

To anyone else, Kakashi's Hatake's activities over the course of the day, while in no way peculiar, were certainly bizarre for him, and especially so given that he lived alone.

To start, he got up early on a Saturday. Not horribly strange, but strange for Kakashi, who frequently sequestered himself away in his bedroom for whole weekends, and strange because he was due to be on the road in a short matter of time.

The bookstore was Kakashi's first stop. While he was a frequent visitor, he did not immediately head to the adult section. He instead stopped to scour every shelf for any sign of either 'Jiraiya' or 'The Toad Sage' and was surprised to find that Jiraiya had, in fact, penned a children's series about ninja's with Naruto as the main character. A fairly well liked one too. He picked up a box set. Collector's edition.

Then it was to the college bookshelves. This of course, could not have been for him because he had his degree, if his resume and living room wall were to be believed. Nonetheless he grabbed two SAT prep books and an ACT prep book just in case.

He also grabbed a brightly colored book full of personality quizzes. Naruto would like those.

Next stop was coffee, which was more for his sanity than anything else. He pulled out his laptop and spent the entirety of his self determined break on google. Once, or twice, he tried to look up Naruto's foster care history, or his high school math teacher, before he felt like a stalker and closed the laptop, hard.

In his head, when he planned this all out, he had thought that he and Naruto would end the evening, perhaps somewhere in a park, most likely together. They would eat hot, homemade ramen, and it would just be the two of them so Kakashi wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about the amount of stuff he bought. Or his now weirdly specific knowledge of Naruto's life and friends. He hated Facebook.

* * *

Being nice, he learned, was harder than he thought. He'd been on the phone for an hour already and still found himself talking in circles.

"No, I need to talk to Gaara."

"I'm sure I could help you, if you just give me your name and I can write it-"

"I gave you my name already. Look I need to talk to him right now."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. At last, the salesperson tried again, "Sir-"

Kakashi hung up.

So, he was going to have to go in person. Great.

Kakashi had done some rudimentary research via Facebook. Through Naruto's very public Facebook page he was able to garner that he'd missed his birthday, and Christmas and Valentine's were a bust. Still he figured that the plant and the car meant he was in serious gift debt to Naruto anyways and that thought alone propelled him out of his seat to start setting his plan into motion.

* * *

The car dealership was the only one in town, and looked like every car dealership Kakashi had ever seen. Low lying cement building with gleaming windows, and a long, long lot full of every car imaginable. A large banner read "Certified Toyota Dealer" over the entrance and balloons and flags lined the lot. Kakashi pulled into the place feeling immediately awkward and slimy.

He walked into a clean, open lobby, full of sunlight and plants. A woman looked up from behind the front desk and flashed him a bleached white smile. "Good day, how can we help you?"

Kakashi had been told, once, that despite the glaringly prominent scar and weird eye he was attractive to the opposite sex. He hoped that was true.

He leant on the desk and tried to smile. "Hello there, I'm trying to find someone called Gaara."

The woman blinked up at him from cat eye frames. "Um…"

"...can't believe you. We agreed we'd both continue our studies here."

"Berkley has a great Anthropology program. Honestly, just be grateful I didn't pack my bags and fly to London-"

A young couple walked out of a door across the room, and Kakashi recognized the man by his high, black ponytail and sour attitude. He left the secretary without a second thought.

"Wait!" He called to them as they walked towards the exit. The woman, blonde with green eyes in a smart black blazer, looked ready to punch him if he came to close, so he halted about five feet away. "Excuse me, Shikamaru, right?"

Shikamaru regarded Kakashi with a look that screamed 'scheming'. "Yeah. What of it?"

"Do you know where Gaara is?"

The couple exchanged a meaningful look, and then the blonde put her hands on her hips and turned to Kakashi. "Maybe. Why?"

"I have a favor to ask. For Naruto," he added, hoping to gain in ally in Shikamaru, who arched a brow at him.

"Naruto?" The blonde looked to Shikamaru and Shikamaru shrugged.

"He's a friend of Naruto's. Or at least, Naruto's been hanging out with him a lot lately."

Kakashi glared. Shikamaru did not look the least bit sorry about being unhelpful. But that seemed to mean something to the blonde.

"Please," Kakashi said stiffly. And he hoped that was enough because he had a short list of ideas and if this didn't work he didn't know if it would even matter. He felt terrible at this.

"Fine," Temari said, and then whirled towards Shikamaru, "We will finish this conversation later."

Shikamaru cowered appropriately away from her accusing gaze.

* * *

Gaara's office was small, and quiet, and the young redhead sat behind a beige desk doing paperwork and looking dreadfully dull. Temari opened the door, said "This asshole wanted to see you 'bout Naruto," and left him. Gaara continued doing something on the computer for about ten minutes before he turned teal eyes on Kakashi.

"How may I help you, Mr. Hatake?"

Kakashi folded his hands quietly in his lap. He sat across from Gaara in a square, uncomfortable chair, and Gaara's calm, eeriness, though odd, at least warranted less subtlety or pretense on his part. "You're a friend of Naruto's-"

"No," Gaara glare, "We served are a friend of Naruto's."

"I see." Kakashi's finger's itched to go after his book or something but he held still. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in helping me, ah, surprise him."

"Surprise?"

Gaara clearly hadn't expected that, he sat back.

"Yes, well, you see, Naruto gave his car away in December."

Back to glaring. "To you."

"Well I didn't ask for it-"

"You could have returned it-"

"Have you tried returning things to Naruto? He's practically redecorated my entire house."

Gaara smiled, though he obviously was trying not to. "I… see. So what do you want?"

"So, I was wondering if I could buy a car."

* * *

Naruto did not get Sasuke alone after he brought him back to Sakura (in one piece and largely mentally stable to boot). He tried not to feel put out about that because, Sakura needed him, of course, but he found himself playing the background character to Sasuke's angsty protagonist more and more as Sakura prepared for lunch. Everyone was coming over to celebrate Sasuke's return and eat lasagna. Ino had Sasuke cornered in Sakura's kitchen.

"What was it like? Prison?"

Sasuke shrugged and drank coffee. The four of them were sitting at the kitchen table, Sakura waiting anxiously for the oven to go off and Naruto sitting silently while Sasuke maintained the attention of both women.

"Please don't bother him, Ino," Sakura said.

"But-"

There was a knock on the door. Naruto sent thanks to the higher powers for the interruption and jumped to go get it, while Ino tried a new tactic.

"Is your brother really a murderer?"

Naruto swung the door open to find Shikamaru and Choji on the doorstep. Shikamaru looked as enthused as ever, and Choji crumpled up and tossed his bag of chips like Naruto didn't know the man was a voracious snacker.

"We heard there was a party," Shikamaru said, looking none too pleased to be there. He lit up a cigarette. Naruto grinned.

"It's gonna be wild. Sasuke's gonna sit there and look cool. We're all gonna be ignored. There's lasagna."

"I'm in," Choji said, and pushed passed Naruto after the smell of the food, which Naruto heard beep in the oven.

Shikamaru hung back on the doorstep.

"How are you?" He asked between drags of his cigarette.

Naruto looked back at the kitchen where already he could see Choji and Sakura arguing, all in good fun, over healthy portion control. He stepped outside and closed the door.

"I'm ok," he told Shikamaru. And he meant it. Really.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Turns out he just disappeared into the wind for god knows how long because he needed to get back in touch with Itachi."

"I see. What'd Itachi say?"

"He won't tell me but," Naruto shrugged, "I think this is the last disappearing act for a while."

"Sure," Shikamaru said.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while. Naruto met Shikamaru before he left for basic back when Sakura had first enrolled in university. He had been in her psych class freshmen year while Naruto had struggled through another senior year of high school. Somewhere along the way the asshole decided that Naruto passing was his personal God given mission. Back before he smoked.

"You shouldn't smoke." He thought of drunk Kakashi lecturing Genma on the subject and smiled.

Shikamaru grinned, and blew a bunch of smoke in his face.

"Oh, gross!" Naruto coughed.

"Listen." Shikamaru dug around in his pocket and pulled out a letter. "Here. Temari gave it to me. It's from Gaara. They're having a small get together tomorrow. By the way, you have your license, right?"

"This is very fancy." Naruto flipped open the letter and laughed. "Oh my God, this is from Bee."

He held up the letter so Shikamaru could see the well thought out rhymes and severe handwriting.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Right, right. You have a license though?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Just checking, c'mon, we should get back in there." Shikamaru put a hand on his back and led him inside.

* * *

Kakashi wound up waiting until nightfall to pick up some ramen.

He started reading the 'Gutsy Ninja' series instead, and found he had to put down the book every time the main character did something a little too stupid (or too Naruto).

He still found himself jumping when his phone buzzed, with a text from Naruto.

 _Can you give me a ride?_

* * *

Naruto did not have a horrible time at Sakura's, but he definitely kept looking for an exit. Bee's party wouldn't start for another hour and a half, and Sakura was insistent on driving him. They all sat in the living room. Naruto found and claimed a corner of the couch while Sasuke claimed the lounge chair. Shikamaru sat perched on the back of the couch and Choji worked his way through thirds at the coffee table.

 _Can you give me a ride?_

He stared at his phone. He'd texted Kakashi an hour ago. Maybe he was being too casual. They weren't even really friends, hell, Naruto had wrecked his car and his Christmas and his house, who was he to even ask for a ride when-

 _What did you do?_

Naruto had...never received a text back from Kakashi and he stared at the phone grinning like an idiot while the other's arguing over dishes faded into the background.

 _Nothing!_

He was thinking out a more detailed reply when suddenly Sasuke was over his shoulder. "Who are you talking to?"

Naruto yelped. "N-no one!"

Suddenly every eye in the room was on him. Shikamaru smirked, and Naruto knew something was up because Shikamaru was never that pleased, but it was Sasuke who spoke.

"It's that guy, isn't it?"

Sakura seemed to know instantly. "Oh, Kakashi? How is he?"

Naruto sometimes hated their weird ability to mind-read each other (and him, if he was being honest).

"I- I mean, fine, he's just. Yeah."

Sakura smiled and paused mid trying to shove some dishes at Choji to gush. "That's great. I'm glad you're still talking to him. He seemed nice."

"He's cursed," Sasuke spat.

"And that's where I check out," Shikamaru stood and walked out of the room, waving at Choji and Ino, who sighed, and departed from where she was lurking over Sasuke. "Come on you two."

Sakura watched them go. When they had closed the door behind them, she sighed. "Sometimes I can't tell if he believes us or just finds us incredibly annoying."

"Same difference," Sasuke said.

"You didn't tell me he was cursed," Sakura said, "He doesn't seem it." Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other and Sakura sighed again. "It's very obvious, isn't it?"

"He looks like a rain cloud," Sasuke said.

"I'm trying to help him," Naruto said.

"Well you shouldn't." Sasuke glared intensely at his drink. "You'll get hurt. Like always."

"Say's you."

Sasuke tensed. Naruto thought he might snap and leap at him, but he seethed silently. Sakura looked nervously between them. "I don't think this is a good conversation for us to be having."

Sasuke sat down heavily beside Naruto, glowering at the wall. Sakura lowered her plate and sat beside him. The three of them, together again. "If you need a ride we can give you one."

"I don't need you reading my messages, thanks. Besides, maybe I want to go with Kakashi."

"Why?"

"I'm allowed to have other friends, Sasuke."

"He's not your friend. He's some creepy old man-"

"Fuck off."

That was it for Sasuke. He turned and swung without warning the his fist connected with Naruto's side before he could blink and then he lunged at him.

Sakura screamed.

Naruto broke Sasuke's weak hold. His face burned red with shame, and even Sasuke refused to meet Sakura's eyes as they froze mid grapple.

Naruto laughed. "Fuck. Sorry Sakura. We're such idiots."

"Sasuke, stop," she said.

He hung his head, and Naruto settled back down into the couch. "You don't know him. He's nice."

Sasuke said nothing. Naruto shifted awkwardly, and looked towards the front door. "I think I should go."

Sakura looked helplessly between the two. At last Sasuke stood. "Let's get air."

* * *

"That was real fucking weak, man," Naruto said, when they were outside, and Sakura had rounded up the other's so she could continue playing party host.

Sasuke shrugged. They were out on the curb of the apartment complex. Afternoon was already fading to blue and cold and Naruto welcomed it compared to the stuffy feeling of being in the tiny apartment with the others.

"I talked to Itachi," Sasuke said.

"You mentioned."

Sasuke sighed and turned his hands over in front of his face. Naruto recognized the gesture. It was how the other man tested his vision.

"How are the eyes?"

"Worse everyday."

"Go see a doctor."

"Next week. Sakura made me schedule the appointment." Sasuke said it with a small smirk, and the pure fondness in his voice was enough to reassure Naruto of everything. Despite the months, despite his idiocy, his friends still loved each other.

"Why do you hate Kakashi?"

Sasuke sighed. He took a long time to answer, preferring to play with his hands. "You remember when we were kids, and you followed me around?"

"You followed me."

"Whatever. You remember how you told me you would stick to me even if it killed you?" Sasuke looked at Naruto and Naruto knew he was not seeing him properly.

Naruto laughed. "What, this?" he raised his plastic arm.

Sasuke shrank back. "I break everything."

"I'm not broken. Fuck off."

Sasuke regarded him from under dark hair and an oppressive silence. "You know. People like Kakashi and me. We can't be fixed."

Naruto stared up at the sky, left hand going to feel out the place under his coat where what was left of his arm and shoulder met fabric and plastic. "Yeah, Sasuke. I get it."

* * *

Naruto waited for Kakashi on the curb about a block from Sakura's. If Kakashi realized this he didn't say so, and Naruto got into the passenger side of the Toyota grinning despite the chilly evening.

"Fancy seeing you here."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. He looked his usual self, buttoned up in a grey coat, hair eschew. Naruto buckled up.

"Thanks for this, by the way, I haven't seen some of these guys in forever." he said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Army friends, you know?"

Kakashi nodded, but seemed distracted. He glanced over at Naruto. "Those aren't your work clothes."

Naruto laughed and unzipped his coat to show Kakashi his rumpled button up.

"You look good."

The humor drained out of Naruto immediately. He zipped his coat and sat back and tried to decide why suddenly that made him uncomfortable.

"Sasuke doesn't like you." He tried out the words and tried not to let it hurt.

Kakashi didn't look the least bit concerned as he drove them through the dark, sleepy town. "I didn't think he did."

"You aren't creepy you know."

"Thanks."

Kakashi kept looking over at him, and Naruto decided he needed to act less weird. "You'll like these guys you know. If you want to meet them."

It didn't seem to work. Kakashi cast him and peculiar look and said quietly, "Thanks but, I think I'll pass. Call me when you need a ride home?"

Naruto got dropped off in front of the bar feeling put out and a bit on edge. He watched Kakashi pull away and sighed.

* * *

Naruto always forgot why he loved the Army until he was sitting in a room with people like Bee. Bee who three times already had tried to turn the quiet bar into open mic night.

Killer Bee had him sitting to his right all night. He had been the one to show Naruto the ropes as the 'weapons guy' and though senior, managed to act with the maturity and tact of someone half his age. Gaara, who had been medical almost his entire career, sat with Utakata who had also been medical and had been a lot less boisterous in showing Gaara how to do things than Bee had been back in the day.

Then there were the engineers. In the Army, engineer was often code for 'blowing things up' and very occasionally putting them back together. That was Fu and Yugara's specialty. They sat at their own table challenging their old captain (Bee's brother known only by the nickname "Third") to an arm wrestling match. Han was referee. Then Roushi pulled them all aside and lectured them on being responsible. The last three of their merry squad, Darui, Omoi, and Arui, sat at a far table, though not for lack of affection. Naruto knew they had nothing but loyalty and love for Bee and his brother, but also a sense of self preservation when it came to the two drinking.

The bar was a cranky, cramped place in a strip mall, a bit too far from town to be practical walking distance. The owner was clearly retired military, and the discount was good. The entire group took up almost half the place with their bulk and refusal to pick one table.

Naruto drank a lot more than he should have.

But he found himself enjoying it regardless, as Yagura and Fu huddled with their own drinks, as Bee's brother tried to keep Bee away from his vodka. It felt like home.

"How are you?" Gaara asked. Gaara didn't drink, but he sipped on a soda while watching the shenanigans of the others with mild amusement. If it could entertain a twelve year old, it could entertain a soldier, Fu always said. His bangs covered up a tattoo Naruto helped him get when they had both left, Naruto with a medical discharge and Gaara of his own volition.

"I'm alright," Naruto said, "Sasuke's being a dick."

"He's just mad he never earned his beret," Utakata said quietly. He was smoking but no one said anything. The pretentious jerk even used a pipe. It made Naruto homesick for other days.

Gaara hmmed in agreement and Naruto rolled his eyes. He waved at the bartender, and she came up to collect his empty glass.

"What's the story with Kakashi?"

Naruto coughed a little. "Sorry?"

"He came by my place today," Gaara said, sounding way, way to disinterested to be anything other faking it. Even for him.

"Why?"

Gaara shrugged. Naruto found Gaara tended to treat a lot of not-cool very odd things with a mundane attitude and wrote it off as another mystery he'd never get to the bottom of.

"You'll find out."

Naruto sighed. After giving it a moment of thought, Naruto looked at his friend. "You like him then? Kakashi?"

Gaara stared at him for a very long time. "I...do. Though I think it is your opinion that matters more."

"But you like him?"

"Yes."

Naruto felt a warm, and oddly satisfied with that answer. "Between you and me. I like him too. But don't tell him. I think he had an ego."

* * *

Somewhere around eleven, after the drinks had slowed down, Naruto actually found himself being kicked out. He was trying to finish a drink when Gaara came up behind him and:

"You should go outside," Gaara said.

"What, why?"

"You have work tomorrow. It's getting late."

"I want to stay~"

Killer Bee's hand came down on his shoulder, firm and large. "Listen to Gaara, he knows what's up." There was some more whining and rhyming but Naruto was too tired to argue.

"Jesus, when did you guys become such moms?" The rest of the group went stony faced and silent. This was so like them. Something was up. Naruto ignored his better judgment and started packing.

"Whatever, fuck you guys," he said good naturedly, and waved as he walked out of the bar.

And straight into Kakashi.

* * *

Kakashi tried not to look to guilty when Naruto stumbled out of the bar. He could see Naruto's friends peering awkwardly through the double doors but chose to ignore it (though the sight of two large, muscle bound men trying to be discreet was hard not to notice). Naruto looked at him, accusing.

"What is this?"

Kakashi jumped. "Oh. Hey Naruto."

The street was dark, lit only by yellowing lamplight and the lights from the bar. The two were the only ones out on the street and Kakashi tried not to feel self conscious about it. He tugged at his scarf while Naruto started up.

"Didn't you go home? You weren't waiting for me were you? Creep."

"No, I, well, can you come with me?" Kakashi asked, hoping he didn't sound as lame to Naruto as his own ears indicated.

Naruto looked doubtful, but sighed, too tipsy and tired to argue. "Take me away, old man."

Kakashi chuckled and started walking. They walked down the street, around the corner, and Naruto had to jog to keep up. Kakashi tried to slow down despite his nerves. He stopped them in front of a red car parked by a meter.

"Ta-da," he said, feeling like an idiot.

Naruto looked around. It was a normal street, with a normal parking meter, and a normal dry cleaners now closed for the evening. Taking this all in, he looked back at Kakashi with an unamused frown. "What?"

"Oh, er. The car."

Naruto turned to look at the obnoxiously red, Toyota Kakashi helpfully gestured at with his gloved hand. "It's a, um, Sienna? I think. I thought you'd want something you could fit your multitude of best friends in."

"What? "

"Um. I'm giving you a car?"

Naruto whirled on him. "You can't give me a car, Kakashi- " Naruto turned back to the cherry red minivan, "How am I supposed to repay this? What kind of present-" Naruto turned and caught Kakashi, who was beginning to feel a bit more smug and far more confident. "How dare you."

"Yes. I can't even imagine the horror. What must it be like to receive a surprise car as a present? No idea." And if he was smiling a little too much, Kakashi didn't care anymore.

Naruto gaped. "Oh. My. God. Shikamaru knew! He kept asking about my liscence. Shit."

Kakashi shuffled back as Naruto collapsed, crouching on the ground and looking for all the world like he was having some kind of crisis. "And Gaara. And Bee. How could you?" Naruto turned to look at the bar around the corner, and though they could not see it Kakashi did not doubt his friends were waiting eagerly. "How dare all of you."

"I was five minutes from calling your high school teacher too, count yourself lucky."

"I take back everything nice I've ever said about you."

Kakashi walked around to the trunk, pulling keys out of his pocket and propping it open. "I wasn't sure if you'd be hungry."

Naruto followed him. Sitting in the back of the car were two steaming takeaway bowls from Ichiraku's, and a pile of silver wrapped presents. Kakashi had almost not wrapped them, but seeing Naruto light up he decided that he made the right call.

"Kakashi…" Naruto said quietly.

"Open them, before you say anything."

Naruto took a seat on the edge of his trunk, and Kakashi followed suit awkwardly. Once they were arranged in a somewhat comfortable way, Naruto cross legged, and Kakashi dangling precariously, Naruto grabbed for the first present.

He tore at the paper to reveal a title: 'Personality Quizzes: Find Your Career, Your Love, Your Destiny'. He laughed.

"I'm making you do all of these."

Kakashi hummed and shifted to get more comfortable as he sat back. His earlier confidence faded replaced my nerves as Naruto grabbed at the next one. Large, rectangular, and solid, and Kakashi hoped everything being books wouldn't be a disappointment.

"You know I have these, right?" Naruto held up the decorative, collectible edition of the Gutsy Ninja series.

"Yes, but do you have the hardcover box set?"

"I have the rough draft." Naruto still grinned ear to ear as he put it down. Finally he reached for one of the last gifts, and Kakashi looked away.

"SAT prep?"

Kakashi had memorized this part. He had practiced what he was going to say waiting in the car over and over so he wouldn't flub. "You still need take the SAT or ACT to apply to college out of the military. Even if you did lose your arm for the greater good. I googled it."

"But I'm not..."

Kakashi stared at him. Naruto stared back.

"You could," Kakashi said, "If you wanted. I could...help you study or something, or Shikamaru. I'm not sure I'd be much good after all this time."

Kakashi tried to say something else else, he wasn't sure what. Something about responsibility and it not meaning anything. Or how Naruto didn't have to do anything, it was just a gift, or how he could return it and they could go eat more ramen instead. It was something along those lines.

But before he could finish that thought Naruto reached out and grabbed him.

Then he kissed him.


	13. Wheels

"Best first date, ever."

"That wasn't a first date." Kakashi almost sounded petulant, but Naruto allowed it because he was still tingling. And honestly. Best first date ever.

"We have dinner, there are presents, we're in your car-"

"Your car."

"My car." Naruto grinned breathlessly up at Kakashi. Kakashi seemed to bite down on whatever other arguments he had about the matter. He shrugged. He was trying to hard to be cool. He was terrible at it, Naruto decided.

Naruto reached up to grab him again.

"We should probably go back inside. I think your friends might be waiting."

"Are you trying to kill the mood or something?"

Kakashi shrugged a little helpless and a bit too shy for someone his age. Naruto laughed and pulled him in for another kiss.

They were going to talk about it. Kakashi said, insisted as they parted that they would. It was well past the time anyone would have still been in the bar, and the air was a lot colder now that the nerves had stilled. They stood by Naruto's car, Kakashi shuffling and pointing shyly to his own vehicle across the street.

"Tomorrow?" Naruto asked. His stomach wobbled a bit.

"I'm going out of town tomorrow."

"When are you back?"

"Next Tuesday."

Naruto nodded and tried not to feel like somehow this was all breaking. It wasn't even a thing, really. Nothing there to break, technically speaking. Kakashi was wandering towards his car, walking backwards like Naruto might disappear if he didn't.

"We could go get ramen," he said, like an apology.

"You know I eat other foods, right?" Naruto said, even as his will power weakened in the face of Kakashi's earnest but nervous chuckle.

They both stood, looking at each other. Naruto didn't feel like getting in the ( his ) car. Kakashi looked a bit conflicted himself.

"Tuesday night?" Naruto asked.

"I might be late."

"That's ok."

Kakashi crossed the distance between them like he could tell that Naruto was nervous. "Tuesday night," he said and quickly bent down to kiss him before ducking out of reach. He was across the street and in his car before Naruto could catch his breath.

* * *

Kakashi had never loved his job.

He took it when he was twenty-five and broke and sad. He was still broke and sad. Not so young anymore.

Still as he drove away from the bar and towards the motel he knew would have a spare room some 120 miles away, he really hated his job. Hated Danzo who ran them ragged, hated the office and its grey carpet, hated the long nights on the roads.

He hated shitty motel food and cold days standing knee deep in snow while trying to avoid making eye contact with some family. He hated people and he hated holidays and…

And he really hated the sort of sinking feeling in his gut the further he got from Naruto.

* * *

Sasuke was not, and had never been one, to apologize. Oh no, the high and mighty Uchiha did not stoop so low. In fact, he had only ever apologized once in the entire time Naruto had known him, and that was to Sakura, when he had first proposed.

Instead Sasuke hung over him like a shadow. He dropped Naruto off at work, picked him up and shuttled him to his night job. He took Naruto's car in to Kiba to make sure that 'shady asshole wasn't up to something,' and on one particularly odd day, delivered lunch in the form of a bento that Sakura definitely had to have made because Sasuke had the cooking skills of any infantryman (none).

Naruto accepted the silent not-apology for what it was, and started with the little things. He bought the groceries so Sakura didn't have to, and as Sasuke became more inclined to stay home, he started buying cookbooks and even stole Shikamaru's HBO password. Sasuke didn't say anything, but Naruto's daily lunch deliveries became noticeably less pretty right around the time he received a thank you card from Sakura. And weirdly, despite everything, the three fell into a strangely normal pattern. Almost like nothing had happened at all.

There were more doctors appointments, yes. They were, in small ways, preparing Sasuke for the life ahead, even if he refused to touch any canes or aids until he absolutely had to, even if he wore glasses two inches thick and preferred to live in the dark so everyone had to stumble around with him. Asshole.

And Naruto counted down the days until Tuesday.

* * *

Kakashi felt anxious as he approached the edge of town. It was the unexplained edgy anxious that showed up right before he took a nosedive through ice, or crashed his car, or someone-

No. There was no way anyone was dead.

He made it back at eleven at night and called Naruto as soon as he was in the door. The blonde picked up, sounding groggy and half whispering.

"I'm at work. Can we get breakfast?"

Kakashi agreed immediately. But sleep didn't come easy, and when he did finally arise to the morning light and birds and cold he couldn't hear out of his right ear or breathe out his nose. He sighed and marched towards the shower.

His phone rang as he stepped out of the water, and he answered trying not to sound cranky or stuffy.

"You alright?" Naruto asked.

He did not succeed. "Fine, just a little stuffed."

"Oh, ouch. Um, so, Ino called," Kakashi felt his heart sink. "I can't get out of work today, but you know, we could get lunch? If you're feeling better, I mean. Not if you're sick."

"I'm fine, I-"

" Kakashi ."

Kakashi sighed. "Call me at lunch."

He spent the rest of his morning hobbling together the things he would need for a quiet day in the office. He put together multiple packets of paperwork from his trip, heated up a sandwich that only proved to make him nauseous, and carefully got dressed, trying to avoid feeling dizzy. By the time he was on his way to the car the worst symptoms of his growing cold had receded, replaced with congestion and annoyance at the dull ache in his muscles. Still, he couldn't afford to miss more work.

He got in the door at around ten thirty. Late enough to ensure a loudly sung lecture by Guy about work ethic.

He kicked open the door to the main floor, stepped into the break room, but skipped the coffee in favor of stealing an apple from the fruit basket. He was halfway to his desk before he realized something was wrong. No one was talking. He saw some people from HR in the far corner whispering.

He slowed, dropped his bag at his desk, and took a seat. The suffocating feeling from the night before came back.

"Kakashi." Genma spoke with an unusual amount of quiet and Yamato looked like a wide eyed puppy on his heels, looking nervously between him and Kakashi as they approached the desk. "Have you checked your email?"

Kakashi spared a moment to look at Yamato who looked frozen, and unlocked his phone.

….Obito and blood and alcohol and the screaming of sirens.

Rin laid out in a coffin, face white, mother in tears.

Hayate in a hospital bed, hair long gone, a face like a skeleton come to life.

His own father on the floor, Kakashi quietly closing the door on his unmoving body.

* * *

It was Yamato who called Naruto. Naruto stared down at his phone, which sat next to a flowerpot while Naruto worked away repotting some of the more overgrown plants in the front store. Not feeling terribly optimistic, he wiped his left hand on his pants and picked up.

"Naruto?" Yamato's voice sounded high and unsteady.

"Yeah?"

"It's Kakashi. I mean it's-"

Naruto stood. He grabbed his jacket from where he'd tossed it on the ground and shrugged it on one handed.

"What's going on?"

"Well, Guy got into an accident."

"Who?"

"Our co-worker he, there was an accident. He was hit by a car head on. He's been rushed to the hospital but-"

"Where's Kakashi?" Naruto asked. He grabbed the keys from behind the register, flipped the sign in the door to read 'closed', and locked up the shop.

* * *

Naruto had seen Kakashi have 'issues,' as he liked to call it, before. Had seen him go stone faced and cold in the bathroom of the hospital that night with Yamato. Had seen him retract into himself with every suggestion that he might get to know someone, might 'loosen up'.

Naruto couldn't help but feel in part, guilty for that.

He had checked the apartment first, only to find the door unlocked and the car missing. Instead he found him standing outside the hospital looking lost. Kakashi had his coat on, but his scarf was missing and he looked up at the large, white-grey building without really seeing. People walked in and out and Kakashi just stared.

Naruto decided to park, and walked up to Kakashi on foot. He had forgotten his gloves.

"Hey," he said, putting a hand on Kakashi's shoulder. Kakashi did not move, and his expression didn't change.

"I can't go back to work," he said, and his voice was wrecked . Naruto felt ill just listening. "I'm going to just stop going. Danzo will fire me."

"You can't do that, Kakashi-"

"I have to, don't you get it?" Kakashi whirled around and the expression on his face was so ugly Naruto let go, stumbling back. A deformed eye and an angry scowl rooted him to the sidewalk. "All you've done is...is put shit in my apartment I didn't ask for and- nothing is going to get better, don't you see?"

Naruto stared. His hand went to his neck and found the chain that lay there under his clothes. His old dog tags. He closed his eyes and tried to not let it hurt. There was no time for that now.

"Kakashi."

"I'm sorry, Naruto," Kakashi said, already his anger faded, his face returned to the more simple, welcoming facade Naruto knew, and the shadow of a curse shifted away. For a moment Naruto could make out his face perfectly. "I'm just tired."

Naruto reached for him, grabbed his hand without meeting resistance. "Come on. You shouldn't be here like this. Curse or not."

* * *

They found a park nearby. It looked like it belonged to the hospital. Trees lined a basic straight path with grass on either side buried under melting snow. Few people were out, save a doctor or two getting fresh air. An unused fountain sat at a crossroad where two paths met. Naruto led Kakashi there.

They sat on a bench despite the wet and cold. Neither said anything, and instead let the cold air fester between them. Kakashi sat leant over, hands folded, staring at the ground, but he didn't seem angry anymore. The curse that hung over him like a death shroud pulsed and Naruto really really wished there was some way to say it would end.

"I have to say something," he said at last. Kakashi didn't look up. "I know I promised to help you. And I will. I always will, if you let me but… I don't think I've been entirely fair. It's true my godfather broke a curse once...but he died when it happened. It's possible I may never be able to get rid of it entirely. But the things I've tried they aren't...they aren't stupid, Kakashi. It helps. It's been helping. I-"

All at once Naruto knew what he had to- no wanted- to do. He reached under his collar and yanked off a necklace with more force than was likely necessary. He held it up. His dog tags, and the small charm Tsunade had given him at Jiraiya's funeral. They caught and bounced the light across the park. Kakashi looked up at him.

"These are good luck. I've had them forever. But I don't need them."

"Naruto-"

"No really. I think you need them more. I can't always be there, but this way you have an edge up on whatever assholes are controlling the universe. At least. I think so. And the truth is it may not ever end. Maybe you'll always be cursed. But this is my promise that I won't let it hurt you. And it won't hurt me. And you've got to stop beating yourself up because the truth is a meteor could crash into us right now and maybe it's because we have shitty luck or maybe it's because you're cursed but even if you are, I'm not going anywhere and neither are you. And nothing might change, but I'll be here, and that counts for something, right?"

Kakashi's face was unreadable.

Naruto waited, not daring to breathe. Not able to stand the idea that Kakashi could speak, and the answer could be no.

Instead Kakashi fell over.

"Kakashi!"

* * *

Kakashi awoke to Naruto asleep on the far side of the room, leaning against the wall, first book of the Gutsy Ninja series on his chest. He immediately felt guilty. His bedside table held his clothes, his book, and sitting gently on top, Naruto's dog tags.

He sighed. He picked up his phone. Missed calls, and an email or two form Genma and Lee. It was more than he was used to when he wound up in the hospital. He read the message from Lee first. Guy was out of the ICU and the doctors were optimistic he would recover. Yamato sounded like a worried mother hen. Genma's included a lot of swearing.

He looked over at his guest and reached for the necklace on the bedside table.

Technically speaking, Naruto had already won. He decided to wait until the blonde woke up to tell him that.

* * *

"I knew you liked me, but I didn't think you would faint," Naruto would joke much later. Kakashi would sigh like a bedraggled old man and say, "I had pneumonia. It's a side effect of falling into lakes all the time." Naruto would laugh.

Today, though, Kakashi, fully discharged, had two tasks ahead of him. The first was to visit Guy.

Even approaching the room a part of him wanted to apologize. How, he wasn't sure, but he didn't think 'I'm cursed and everyone I love dies, sorry,' was the way to go. His hand went to the chain around his neck, just double checking.

When he'd awoken the next day Naruto was gone, but a cheerful note in silver sharpie informed him the blonde would wait on his call. He did not intend to keep the blonde waiting long, but also knew Naruto's patience was not as great as his own.

The sound of Lee cheering informed him he was almost there. He was not surprised Lee was there, though he had not planned it, and he rounded the corner to see a slightly worse for wear Guy wrapped in bandages making his way down the hallway in a wheelchair. Much too quickly.

Kakashi jumped out of the way just in time.

"Be careful, sir!" Lee called as Guy wailed down the hall, "Oh, Kakashi! How are you?"

"I stopped by to see how he was doing." Kakashi nodded down to the hall to where a nurse was now rightfully chewing Guy out for causing a ruckus.

"Oh, quite well, the nurses say he is not only making a full recovery, but twice as fast as he should be!"

As a nurse struggled to force Guy to go back to his room, Kakashi doubted they had meant that as a compliment.

Kakashi still felt the guilt wash over him. He went to rescue the nurse and with what he hoped was a charming smile, walked up behind Guy, leaning on the back of the hospital issued wheelchair. "I'll take it from here."

The nurse harrumphed and stormed away.

"Where to?" he asked Guy.

Guy yanked away as best he could. "I can wheel myself, Kakashi, old friend."

The three made the trip back to Guy's room. Guy seemed in good spirits, and he and Lee went back and forth about the most trivial things. Sports, workouts, food. Kakashi just replayed a list of ever growing concerns in his head until they made it to the room and Guy was helped back into bed. How was he paying for this? What did his insurance cover? What were the extent of his injuries? When would he be able to work again?

Guy turned a stunning smile on Kakashi. "So what can I do for you, my old rival?"

Kakashi immediately stuck his foot in his mouth. "So how long you in the chair?"

From the look on both Lee and Guy's faces he knew he shouldn't have asked. As another wave of guilt washed over him, he reached for the necklace.

"Don't worry about me, Kakashi, this will not set me back long." Guy struck a pose, flexing his arms under the bandages and bruises. "I've decided this is a blessing in disguise. I will spend this time of my life honing my body into the best shape it's ever been in, you'll see!"

It was a...very Guy answer. Kakashi smiled fondly. "I only believe you because it's you saying it Guy. Anyone else and I'd think they were putting on a brave face."

Guy nodded appreciatively. "Even so, I fully intend to keep my word. Danzo has even offered to pay some of the medical expenses."

"Really?" Kakashi asked.

Guy shrugged. "You aren't loyal to a company for nineteen years only to have it go unnoticed."

Guy seemed to shrug all of it off as normal. Kakashi thought about luck, and how it had a weird way of circumnavigating his expectations. He was not able to alleviate his guilt, but Guy reminded him oddly of Naruto sitting in bed, brushing off Lee's concern about his legs.

It was time to give the other man a call.

* * *

In the end they got take out and had lunch ("Linner. It's four o'clock, Kakashi.") sitting on Kakashi's couch watching TV with Naruto's charitably provided Netflix account.

Trying to talk proved...ineffective.

Kakashi tried. Multiple times, even. He'd open his mouth to say something, about how they needed to be careful or slow or to ask what Naruto was thinking or feeling. Then he'd look over at Naruto and lose his nerve.

Some Netflix original he'd never seen droned on, and they ate chicken stir fry in silence. Naruto kept looking over at him.

"Should I start?" He asked, at the start of the third episode.

Kakashi nodded, not trusting his voice.

"What's your favorite color?"

Kakashi stared, confused. "Grey."

"Favorite animal?"

"Dog."

"Do you want a dog?"

"I can't have any dogs." What was he doing?

"Do you want one?"

Naruto kept asking him dumb, unrelated questions. Where did he want to live, how did he like his rice, what was his favorite ice cream, preferred side of the bed, preferred bedtime, morning or evening showers?

Kakashi almost gave up when Naruto put down his food, and turned to face him so he was sitting cross legged on the couch.

"Alright, I think that's enough."

Kakashi coughed and tried to look cool and not like he was completely lost as to what that was enough of.

"Kakashi is there anything you want to know about me?"

Kakashi's mind worked at a sluggish pace, barely interpreting what Naruto threw at him. "What?"

"Like, you know. Cat person, dog person? Deal breakers? Concerns?" Naruto's voice was very quiet and he looked down at his hands.

Oh. Oh. That was what 'that' was. Kakashi thought long and hard. Did he? Naruto's favorite color was orange, his favorite food was ramen. He liked all animals. His favorite flower was currently marigolds. He hated driving. He liked tv. He was young. Too young. But also probably older than Kakashi remembered to give him credit for.

He liked what few friends Kakashi had. Kakashi liked all of his friends. Sometimes even Sasuke.

Naruto was incapable of being quiet, talked when he was nervous, and was not above manhandling total strangers. He swore like Genma. He really loved Christmas.

All at once Kakashi felt his body relax into the couch. He smiled over at Naruto reassuringly, put down his food, and tried to think of something romantic and special to say.

"No. I think you've convinced me. I quite like you." Well he tried .

Naruto grinned over at him. "Ok. Cool. So we can make out now, right?"

There was a lot of kissing after that. And more. And almost more than that. Kakashi tried not to think about it lest he spend more time eternally mortified than he already did.

* * *

Two weeks later and Kakashi sat at his desk and occasionally thoughts of that night strolled uninvited through his thoughts when he was trying to do paperwork. Nothing had gone the way Kakashi had planned it. Part of Kakashi was irrationally upset at the fact. Too many outsiders got involved, there were too many trips to the hospital, and Naruto, Naruto…

He paused and buried his face in his hands. How everything had gone so sideways he had no idea, but it had, gone well, he supposed.

He might dare call himself lucky.

"You aren't giving up on us, are you?" Genma asked and Kakashi jumped, "You've got to give Danzo your two weeks before you die or he'll come for your soul you know."

The other man was leaning over his desk from a desk chair he'd rolled across the room.

"Don't you have someone else to bother?"

Genma shrugged and rolled away. It was hard to look cool rolling away in an office chair, but Genma put in valiant effort. The man had taken to bothering Kakashi since Yamato had left. Guy and Lee were notably absent. Despite everything that had happened in the last weeks, despite how everything felt like it had all changed, it was all the same. The office was grey, the snow was starting to melt. Kakashi was preparing for hail season.

"Eh, by the way, I think your, ah, friend is downstairs," Genma said because he was still an asshole.

Kakashi sighed, but got up from his desk, grabbed his coat, and thanked Genma with a slap on the head on his way out.

"Tell Naruto I said 'hi' and that he can do better."

Genma's teasing and the uneasy feeling in his chest were the only things that had changed since he had gotten back.

He opened the door to the warmest a winter day could get and Naruto casually sitting on the hood of his cherry red mom van. The blonde smiled and Kakashi's mood melted accordingly.

"Hey," Naruto called, "What do you want for lunch?"

* * *

They ended up at the sushi bar. It was a tiny, trendy place. Colorful plates of sushi rolled by on a conveyor belt that stretched the length of the room. A chef behind the bar shouted a greeting as they took their seats and ordered drinks. In no time they were at their usual routine.

"Are you going to help me study or not?" Naruto said, from across the table where he shuffled through SAT prep flashcards looking more panicked by the minute.

Kakashi snatched them away. "Relax, relax."

He turned them over. Mostly vocabulary. Naruto had a wonderful, colorful , vocabulary from his time spent in the military. Mostly creative swear words and acronyms, unfortunately.

Naruto had already stacked three plates and picked another from the spinning conveyor belt as Kakashi shuffled his cards.

 _Incorrigible; incapable of being corrected or reformed._

Kakashi snorted and held it up. "Sounds like you."

"Asshole," Naruto said fondly.


	14. Epilogue

"Lunch?"

" Yes ."

"And extra pencils. And a pen?"

"Did you walk the dog?"

"Yeah I think he's off eating one of my slippers. Did you close the bathroom door?"

"Uhuh. Did you remember your lunch?"

"I'll have coffee for lunch."

Naruto paused and looked up from the couch where he was stuffing a computer bag to half heartedly glare at Kakashi. Kakashi was trying to get his hair into presentable shape using the reflection of the microwave, and didn't notice until several seconds of silence passed. He sighed when he noticed Naruto looking at him.

"I'll grab a snack from the Seven-Eleven across the street."

"Why do we buy food when you eat like this?"

Kakashi walked around the counter to join Naruto at the couch. "You eat too much Ramen."

"You eat too much take out."

Kakashi wrapped him in a hug to end the argument (and because it was cold) and spent the rest of the morning on the couch until Naruto was ready to go.

* * *

"You don't have to drop me off," Naruto said as they headed to the car. Kakashi had eventually broken the Camry, much to Naruto's dismay, and they loaded their bags into the red minivan instead. Naruto waved to Chiyo as they passed in the halls, and Kakashi scowled when the old woman waved back with the utmost pleasant smile.

"I don't know why she likes you," he said as he buckled into the driver's seat.

"Jealous isn't a good look on you, Kakashi."

Naruto grinned and Kakashi sighed and they pulled out and started their day the same way they had for the last three months.

As he drove them towards the community school on the far side of town, Kakashi found himself looking over at Naruto in between checking the morning rush hour traffic. Naruto for his part was listening to music, completely oblivious to the thoughts running through Kakashi's head.

Ten days. Naruto had stayed almost ten days in a row now.

How many days would Naruto have to stay before it would be okay to ask him to move in?

* * *

After dropping Naruto Kakashi drove back across town to the local high school.

He parked out front, waved to some of his students has he headed to his classroom. He passed Asuma in the hall, and had to stand by and watch Izumo's homeroom for a few minutes while the man used the restroom.

When he arrived at his classroom he gratefully took a seat at his desk. First period was a free period and he was behind on grading.

Kakashi had spend the summer job searching and trying to get his certification at the urging of Naruto, and Naruto's old high school math teacher Iruka. After being thoroughly hostile to him, Iruka eventually warmed up to the idea of Kakashi. And Kakashi suspected that was in no small part due to something Naruto had done though he didn't know what.

Eventually the first students of second period began to trickle in, and Kakashi had to put aside his AP class' tests for later.

Now, it was time for a pop quiz.

* * *

Teacher's were a very different bunch from insurance agents, Kakashi thought while he tried not to look bored out of his mind. 3:30 in the break room and he was cornered by Kurenai before he could run for the door.

" Happy birthday to you~"

Someone, probably Izumo, offered a weak 'cha cha cha' while Kurenai and several of the female teachers (plus Asuma) serenaded him. Kurenai pulled a cake from the break room fridge as they finished, and Kakashi fished out his phone to snap a photo. For Naruto. Obviously.

"Thank you," he said to his coworkers, as they finished the half hearted song.

Asuma waved him over and he quite unwillingly took a seat beside him and his wife Kurenai while people started grabbing for cake.

Asuma was a tall, tan man with a charming smile, who taught ninth graders proper English, and gave extra credit to kids who could solve his riddles on the back of their tests. He was, unanimously, voted best teacher every year.

"You might give me a run for my money," Asuma told him, his first day there.

"I doubt it." Kakashi replied.

Asuma's wife, heavily pregnant with their second kid, was Kurenai. She taught math, and was probably the teacher all the boys drooled over but Kakashi tried to ignore that. The worst part of teaching high school was all the raging hormones, honestly.

Kurenai, however, was a sweet if strict teacher, and Kakashi knew better than to cross her and accepted the cake she offered graciously.

"You didn't have to do this," he told her.

"Oh, don't even worry about it. First year is the hardest, we wanted to make you feel at home," she said, laying a hand over Asuma's on the table.

"Thanks," Kakashi said. And though he was already checking the time, he meant it.

* * *

Kakashi knew he should head home, but he also knew that if he didn't visit on his birthday of all days that Obito would throw a fit. So he turned his car south and went to visit his oldest friend.

He didn't bring flowers anymore. Not because he couldn't, Naruto promised him a lifetime discount on flowers of his choice, but because if he bought flowers every time he went to speak with Obito Naruto would start to worry. Obito understood, of course. And in due time Kakashi suspected even the visits would stop. He simultaneously looked forward to and dreaded the day.

He parked on the street, tucked his phone in his pocket, and waved to the small old lady tending the yard as he approached Obito and his family's resting place.

He paused, enjoying the smell of late fall as he looked down at the flat grey stone.

"Long time no see," he told the grave. "You'll be happy to know Naruto's started applying to schools. He's applying out of state because he likes seeing my hair fall out early."

"Guy is doing fine. He's a trainer at his old gym now. Man's lucky to be alive. Yamato moved away. I think he's doing fine. Naruto still thinks we should invite him to be my roommate but I got a full time job so I didn't have to live with extra people. Exceptions aside."

"I...we have a dog. He's horrible. Naruto named him Pakkun and I think he thinks we're going to get more." Kakashi smiled even as his hands slipped into his pocket to find his phone.

"We won't though." He lied.

"Anyways. I guess I wanted to stop by to tell you this might be the last time for a while. Fall is pretty busy for teachers, it turns out. If I had known that maybe I wouldn't have switched careers. I'm officially certified now, at least, so that Aburame guy isn't hanging over my shoulder. And now there's only one car between us so…" He trailed off. He felt a part of himself clenching up and fought it down. "I still miss you, you know."

His phone rang, and it felt like the universe had been waiting for Kakashi to finish. He breathed out slowly and smiled softly. "Sorry Obito. I have to take this."

Kakashi he picked it up, knowing who was on the other side.

"Sorry," he said without waiting for a greeting, "I got sidetracked on the road of life."

"Road of life my ass, you are so late. You know we're meeting Sakura and Sasuke for dinner tonight right?"

"Shouldn't you be studying?"

Naruto grumbled. "Kakashi I'm bored out of my mind and I promised you'd be there tonight."

"All right all right. I'm on my way. Hey, what would you say to moving some of your stuff to my place? You're there often enough anyways."

"How much stuff?"

"Hm. All of it?"

Naruto choked on the other side of the phone. " Jesus Kakashi you are the worst. Come pick me up. We'll talk later, ya?"

They said their goodbyes, however temporary they were, and Kakashi decided he would head to the grocery store first and pick up some flowers as an apology. He'd get carnations just to see the mock horror on Naruto's face.

He grinned to himself and started towards his car.

* * *

 **Notes: Hi all! Thank you for reading!**

 **THINGS I COULD NOT FIT IN THIS FIC THAT MAKE ME SAD:**  
 **\- Orochimaru, the Psych Professor**  
 **-Anko and Kabuto, his TAs**  
 **-Hinata and Hanabi (who is sick in the hospital)**  
 **-Kakashi adopting an army of rescue dogs**  
 **-Sasuke being less of an ass**  
 **-B's killer rhymes because I CAN'T RHYME**  
 **-SHIKAMARU GAVE NARUTO THE TV THAT HE GAVE TO KAKASHI WOOPS I FORGOT TO WRITE THAT**  
 **-More Tsunade**  
 **-More Jiraiya**  
 **-Naruto being shirtless**  
 **-there's a texting format I would have loved to use**

 **there was so much. I wrapped it up as best I could. You guys essentially witnessed my first finished novel so congrats. I'm not doing that again any time soon if I can help it.**

 **Though I do have a one-punch/mob psycho crossover rolling around in my brain so maaaaybe**

 **But until then thank you so much for reading and especially those of you who commented. All the love, etc. I'll be making editing passes until my drive for this story dies properly.**

 **You can find it on Ao3 under the same name**


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